Roxalene -- "Call me Pebbles" -- Wadsworth is a slender, mild-looking woman in her early 40's who prefers casual clothes: blouses, pants, crepe-soled flats. She looks like a librarian or a scholar of medieval illuminations. In a large meeting, she listens with an abstracted air, legs crossed and eyes on the ceiling. When she speaks, though, her whole body comes alive, her arms gesture forcefully, and her eyes seek the eyes of everyone present.
As Director of the University of Texas' Performing Arts Center (which commonly goes by its initials, the PAC), she oversees seven theaters and recital halls, has a budget of $4 million, and programs more than 225 events a year. The crown-jewel theater for which she is responsible is Bass Concert Hall, the largest and the best-equipped stage between the coasts. When the English National Opera brought its production of War and Peace to America, only two stages could accommodate it: Bass and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
On April 19, 1993, the comedian-pianist Victor Borge performed in Bass to a full house, 3000 people. Pebbles and her husband were in attendance, and they and the rest of the audience got even more of a show than Borge usually gives.
"If the piano is good," Borge's son told Tom Dwyer, Bass' House Manager, who told Celeste Tanner, Pebbles' Administrative Associate and alter ego, who told Pebbles, "the performance will take about an hour and a half. If the piano is great, it will go longer."
Borge loved the piano, a Bosendofer Imperial Concert Grand, and the program lasted two hours and fifteen minutes.
The next morning, Pebbles was at work for two hours of Mad time before a lunch with the chairman of the University's Radio-Television-Film department. She divides her work day into scheduled appointments, Mad times and Quiet times, she explains, "because Celeste went to a meeting on how to run an office, and she learned this trick, which has saved my life -- kept me from going home every night at eight or later."
During Mad time, Pebbles welcomes walk-in visits from anyone on her 110-person staff and all phone calls. During Quiet time, she works -- reads, writes, thinks -- by herself and accepts only certain phone calls.
This morning, no one comes to her office right away, so Pebbles starts writing letters in plum-colored ink on a yellow legal pad. "I'm going to give you a bunch of stuff to type," she tells Celeste. "I'm clearing my brain."
Celeste, a stately, well-dressed, smiling woman in her fifties, smiles even more. Then she says, "We had a call this morning from a woman who was in the tenth row on the keyboard side last night and couldn't hear the piano."
Pebbles thinks about this. "Odd," she says. "That's just where I was. I heard splendidly. Phone her back and ask what can be done to make her happy. But tell her I was also sitting there and heard fine."
A few minutes later, Matt Hessburg, the PAC's Marketing Manager, comes by to get Pebbles' input on a problem they are working on.
"Have Herb fax a copy of the contract," Pebbles says. "I don't have a copy. We have a copy, but we can't find it right away. I'll be here for a couple of hours working quietly."
Matt explains that the problem is complicated because not only is a second airline involved but comp tickets to performances and advertisements that must soon be set in next year's program.
"I better call him," Pebbles says. "No, stay here," she says to Matt.
"Herb, I'm here with Matt and I hear we have a little problem. It's a failure of communication, and I take full responsibility for it."
Herb says something.
"I know that," Pebbles says. "I know we can work it out. You and Matt need to meet and renegotiate that contract so that both parties are happy. Chevy" (Chevy Humphrey, Pebbles' Development Officer) "is in tears in the trunk of her car because she didn't go to the meeting this morning. Again, I take full responsibility."
After hanging up, Pebbles asks Matt if he's happy about negotiating with Herb. "I'd be there," she says, "but I think this is something for you to work out."
"Right," Matt says. "I'm glad to do it."
Pebbles turns back to her letters. Meanwhile, down the hall in her office, Celeste is meeting with Connie McMillan, the Box Office Manager. "I thought you'd be dying to talk with this person," she says, handing Connie a piece of paper. "She attended Victor Borge last night in the eighth to tenth row on the keyboard side and couldn't hear a thing."
Connie gives a slight groan.
"Yes," Celeste says. "We want to make sure we respond to her concern. Tell her, though, that other people were sitting nearby and heard just fine."
"We don't have anything more coming up at Bass," Connie says. "Nothing anywhere, except the Dance Repertory. She'll want tickets to Cats."
"Which, you can tell her, was unfortunately earlier this month," Celeste says.
Back in her office, Pebbles has gotten far enough into her letters to slow down for a moment and talk about her job.
"I got into this by accident," she says. "When I got out of college, I taught on an Indian reservation and then took six months out to paint. I discovered I wasn't going to be the next Picasso.
"There was a remarkable woman who headed the UCLA performing arts center, Frances Ingalis. She had been the executive secretary of Sam Goldwyn, and she was tough. People were terrified of her, but I wanted to work for her.
"The only job open was as clerk-typist. Now, I can't type very well. I couldn't learn to play piano, either. There's something wrong in my eye-hand coordination. In order to apply as clerk-typist, I had to pass the personnel office test.
"I went in with a splint on my finger and said, 'I can type 90 words a minute, but I can't take the test now because of this.'" She waggles an index finger in an imaginary splint. "They gave me list of all the other things I had to do, machines to run. I checked them all off 'yes, yes, yes, yes.' And got the job.
"I threw myself into everything going on the office, but I kept wearing the splint so I wouldn't have to type. After a while I realized I had to take the splint off. Frances gave me a dictaphone cartridge, and told me to type up what she said. Later, she came by my desk and saw me fumbling with earphones and foot pedals.
"'Miss Ingalis,' I said, 'you're going to fire me, and you should fire me. I was hired under false pretenses. I can't type 90 words per minute.'
"She stared at me. She was famous for her typing. She could type 120 words a minute.
"'Then we will have to find you another job,' she said."
Pebbles folds her hands in her lap, grinning.
"The press assistant had just resigned, and I got that job.
"I kept moving around, and I was finally assistant to Miss Ingalis, who became my mentor. When she retired, the Chancellor -- the president of the University -- appointment me Acting Director. I was 28.
"I asked him why he appointed me, and he said, 'Well, you've done everything here. And you always tell the truth, particularly about how much things are going to cost. And when someone else isn't telling the truth, you always look at the floor.'
"Well, when I got that job, I discovered who my friends were!" Pebbles laughs. "There were people waiting for me to fall on my face."
The phone rings -- it's Mad time, after all -- and Pebbles talks with an old friend. "Really! How wonderful!" she says. "When is it to be? . . . In North Carolina? That's her home? . . . May you be as happy as Christian and me. "Are your children coming?"
She says hmm and nods.
The conversation turns to finances.
"I'm very conservative by nature," Pebbles says. "Robert, let's have a Reality Check. An $85,000 cut is nothing in this time."
She discovers that Robert is coming soon to Austin. "Certainly the piano faculty will be intrigued -- interested. Could you spend time with students? . . . Do you know what you want to play?"
Pebbles scribbles down a few words. She and Robert agree to be in touch when she has scouted out local requirements.
She hangs up and shouts, presumably to Celeste down the hall, "Robert Blocker's getting married!"
She explains that Blocker, an excellent pianist, is Dean of the School of the Arts at UCLA and that the School had been having a bad time until, after a four-year search, he was brought in. "Film and theater, especially film, are what count at UCLA. And they were cut away from Arts and made a separate school in hopes that Hollywood people would give more money to a clearer target."
Pebbles came to Austin less because of the remarkable performing facilities, though they counted, than because of the plans of Jon Whitmore, the University's Dean of Fine Arts. "I had been offered other jobs, including Carnegie Hall," Pebbles says. "But they wouldn't let me do what I want. I knew what Jon was trying to do -- build a prototype school of the arts for the twenty-first century -- and I absolutely agreed with his program.
"When I took over at UCLA, all we programmed was Western elite culture. There we were in one of the great immigrant cities of the world, and we showed only a sliver of its art. I began reaching out to any ethnic group that would listen to me, saying 'How can we help you get your music and dance and drama before the whole community?'
"I knew that Jon wanted to do exactly that with the Performing Arts Center, have a facility where the old barriers were down, and was looking for someone to head it. He asked me if I'd do it, and I said, 'No, but I'll help you find someone.'
"I came to Austin and was amazed by what was here, performing arts facilities already built for next century. Facilities that could be a resource for both the College of Fine Arts and the University community and communities beyond the University."
Pebbles is talking now in her full-persuasion mode. She leans forward in her chair, her arms and hands opening up.
"You see, culturally we have failed. That's what the Los Angeles riots showed us. We aren't paying attention to each other. Peter Sellars -- you know, the director -- has said that Los Angeles is an experiment that didn't work.
"My hope is that here in Austin we can pioneer a new pattern. This year we collaborated with La Peña, the Mexican-American art organization, to bring in Tish Hinojosa and Mercedes Sosa. Wonderful! A whole new audience in Bass. I felt my husband and I were practically the only non-Spanish speakers. We gave the profits to La Peña so they can continue their work, and this next year we'll collaborate with them again.
"I'm working also with the Black Arts Alliance. We're bringing in Wynton Marsalis. We had the Ghanaian National Dance Company this year, and we'll have the Ballets Africains and Kodo Drummers in November and January.
"I sought out people in the Austin music scene, and we're going to start a collaboration, the Country Knights-Broken Spoke Series. I think it's horrible that Willie Nelson has never performed in Bass and, come September, he will. With Alvin Crow and the Geezinslaw Brothers. In November, we have Jerry Jeff Walker.
"All of this, and plenty of elite art -- Itzhak Perlman, the Royal Ballet of London, Marilyn Horne -- and musicals and family shows."
The phone rings and Pebbles is brought back to earth. Lee Smith, a vice-president for business affairs at the University, is calling to continue a conversation about the 8 percent state tax Pebbles now has to collect on all performances that aren't student productions.
"I'm so frustrated," Pebbles says, though she speaks with perfect calm and good humor. "Spike Lee speaks to thousands of paying customers and doesn't have to pay tax. A dance performance for a 100 people has to pay tax."
The vice-president explains.
"Well," says Pebbles, "maybe we'll have somebody stand up before each event and give a two-minute lecture. I'm a bit desperate, really. We figured this year it will cost us $87,000. And next year, when we try to explain to our audience . . ."
Mr. Smith responds.
"Yes, I know, Lee. I will pass this on to Matt" (the marketing manager) "and he'll be in touch to be sure what we can say and can't say in our subscription promotion."
Pebbles hangs up. She doesn't sigh about the taxman; she doesn't revert to multicultural speculation. A woman of the moment, she glances at her watch and sees that the next thing on the plate is her lunch appointment. She nips into Celeste's office, where Celeste is talking with Maria Aleman, Matt's administrative associate, about outreach to primary and secondary schools. The PAC is sponsoring Jacques d'Amboise's "Believe in Me" program to build self-esteem in children, particularly those at risk of not finishing school, through teaching them to dance; the next day, Pebbles and Maria will visit an elementary school to watch a final rehearsal of Austin's "Believe in Me 1993."
"I'm running to lunch," Pebbles says. "I have an appointment with Jerry at 2, and then Quiet time."
Celeste smiles and nods, and Pebbles is gone.
