When Seattle native Ann Fellin moved to Ouray a little more than a year ago, she had a vision for her life: A peaceful few years of teaching yoga, the perfect capstone to a lengthy corporate career.
But when Fellin heard the Wright Opera House was looking for a new executive director, she couldn’t help herself. She had been to a performance at the venue, and had fallen in love with it.
“I just thought this place was so cool and so vibrant and so beautiful and such a gem,” she said. “I remember saying to one of the gals (at the event) … ‘I just want to get to know this place and I want to get to know everyone here.’” Fellin applied, got the job, and officially started the new role Nov. 1.
“I feel honored to be taking the helm here,” Fellin said in a recent interview. “I’m really just so excited.”
Full circle
Taking the reins at the nonprofit is a return to Fellin’s roots — in more than one way.
Fellin “basically grew up in nonprofit,” immersed in the halfway house that her father and mother — a public school teacher and an administrative assistant — helped found. The family also regularly volunteered at a center that provided services for people with cerebral palsy, where Fellin’s cousin lived.
“I had really good parents,” Fellin said. “They really taught me to just care about the world around me.”
Fellin was also an arts enthusiast and dancer who performed in school plays and musicals in grade school and high school, and a singer even through her adult life. During her senior year, she was the lead in her school’s production of “Crimes of the Heart.” The role gave her a chance at a potential big break, after her drama teacher’s parents — talent agents in New York — came out to see her perform.
The couple told Fellin that when she graduated, she could come stay with them and they would help her find acting work. It was a chance Fellin never took, however.
“My parents thought that was a really bad idea,” Fellin said, laughing. “They were my parents. They did their best to ruin a lot of my good times.”
Fellin went on to a long career in the mortgage industry, as well as stints serving as a major gifts officer and as an executive director of a senior center.
She raised three daughters and, about five years ago, started dating her now-husband Tom Fellin, a school counselor who was born in Ouray and who always wanted to move back to the area, where his parents live. They started spending a month in the area every summer, and finally moved out in August 2022, just a few months after getting married.
Plans for the Wright
Fellin is taking over from outgoing executive director Brooke Easley, who Fellin credits with “so much groundwork for getting this place in the black.” While Fellin will be involved in every aspect of life at the Wright, she said she plans to focus heavily on fundraising to create sustainability for the historic venue, which was built in 1888.
“We have a really active board … and they have a really clear vision of where they want to take the Wright,” she said. “… We have a lot of capital improvements that we want to make, and we have a lot of improvements and additions we want to make in programming.”
Fellin said details on plans for capital improvements haven’t been finalized, but will be forthcoming. Programming- wise, she said she’s hoping to expand the theater’s wedding and special events business — and especially its live music offerings.
“That’s one thing the community has asked for and we have heard them,” Fellin said.
Fellin said ultimately, she wants to find ways to let the Wright keep doing what it does.
“It’s a place for people to expand their horizons and their visions of the world through art,” she said. “It’s a place where everybody can come.”
