Hala Moddelmog ushers Woodruff Arts Center into a new era
On a Monday evening in November, Woodruff Arts Center CEO Hala Moddelmog guided a finely dressed crowd of board members, donors and guests through the center’s nearly complete Goizueta Stage for Youth and Families. The 69-year-old Hartwell native was proud to show off the new 300-seat theater set to open at the end of January.
The stage will be dedicated to family programming for the Alliance Theatre and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, which both have robust education programs in music, theater and performance.
“We’ve got a lot of demand for it,” Moddelmog said. “It’s one of the areas where demand has outstripped our ability to take care of it. We have gorgeous spaces for adult programming, but we needed more spaces for youth and family.”
Following the theater tour, Moddelmog accompanied the crowd into the Goizueta Stage’s sleek new Wilner Family Lobby where high ceilings, geometric architectural details and a golden-hued color palate create an elegant and modern aesthetic.
Moddelmog takes particular delight in a set of doors that open directly onto Peachtree Street. For roughly 15 years, the doors have remained locked to the outside world. The new setup will now grant entry to families, school groups, passersby and Moddelmog’s own three grandchildren, whom she and husband Steve Moddelmog entertain often from their home in Ansley Park. The couple has two adult children.
In one corner of the lobby, glass windows peer into what will be the PNC PlaySpace, an experiential learning center where children can play, create and engage with themed programming for free six days a week. The first theme will be “Bossa Nova Baby,” a Brazilian rainforest.
Outside, a community green space, lighting enhancements, new signage and infrastructure upgrades are underway.
All the transformations are part of a grander vision funded by a $67 million capital campaign Moddelmog helped launch in August 2024. One hundred percent of the campaign’s goal has been raised, she said.
Glass-ceiling breaker
Moddelmog was named CEO five years ago in September 2020 in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, when Woodruff was earning almost no revenue from in-person events.
Previously she had been the first female president and CEO of the 160-year-old Metro Atlanta Chamber, and before that, president and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the largest breast-cancer research and advocacy organization in the world. (Moddelmog beat breast cancer before leading the organization.)
In her early career, Moddelmog was a leader in the quick-service food industry, first as the first female CEO and president of Church’s Chicken, then as president of Arby’s. (Atlantans can thank her for adding freshly baked biscuits to Church’s menu in the early ’90s and for helping steer Arby’s through a major turnaround following the Great Recession of 2008).
In every arena, Moddelmog has been a glass-ceiling breaker.
Joining Woodruff during the pandemic gave Moddelmog the opportunity to zoom out and get a bird’s-eye view of its operations. She examined the organization’s debt, its capital maintenance plan (for things like roof replacements and infrastructure repair) and its overall business model.
And, it gave her time to listen to Woodruff’s arts partners.
One dreary Sunday afternoon, Moddelmog remembers gathering with Susan Ambo, CFO of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; Brady Lum, chief operating officer of the High Museum of Art; and Mike Schleifer, then managing director of the Alliance Theatre, to hear them deliver a proposal for changing how the center handles its patron-facing services such as parking, security, food and beverage.
The outcome, Moddelmog said, was a complete restructuring of all patron-facing services that removed the responsibility from Woodruff’s central control and put it into the hands of the three arts partners who know their patrons best.
A new restaurant
Once the more top-level, organizational changes had been implemented, and the pandemic abated, Moddelmog moved into a second phase of more visionary thinking.
In addition to the Goizueta Stage, she set her eyes on the restaurant space that used to house Table 1280 on the campus courtyard at Woodruff.
“Given my background in food service, I knew very well that our food and beverage model was not right,” she said. “What we needed in that restaurant was a true restaurateur.”
Chef Craig Richards, owner of Lyla Lila near the Fox Theatre, was a prime fit.
In August, he opened Elise, a modern, fine-dining, French and Italian-inspired restaurant at the Woodruff Arts Center.
“It’s extraordinary,” Moddelmog said.
Creativity meets neuroscience
Moddelmog’s latest frontier — her “third big milestone” as she calls it — is Woodruff’s new Arts + Health Laboratory, a statewide neuroarts coalition in partnership with the national NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative.
Announced in October, the Arts + Health Laboratory is one of four pioneer coalitions across the United States, including others in New York City, Kansas City, Missouri, and Palm Beach, Florida, participating in a science-driven effort to study how the arts can improve brain and body health.
Bringing together universities, health care providers, research organizations and other community partners, the Arts + Health Laboratory aims to demonstrate arts’ transformative effect.
The NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative was launched by Susan Magsamen, co-author of New York Times bestselling book “Your Brain on Art.”
Woodruff’s partnership with the organization will position the center to become a leading hub for work at the intersection of creativity and neuroscience.
“Art is more than entertainment,” Moddelmog said. “It’s important to who we are as humans and it can do an awful lot to heal and grow the brain and the body.”
The science-backed argument for arts funding could also help reshape how the public and policymakers view — and fund — arts institutions.
“The arts are always struggling for their place in funding,” she said. “So reframing and reemphasizing the importance of art — not just as a luxury but as something critical to the health of our society — is going to be huge moving into the future.”
Moddelmog’s hope is that Woodruff becomes a place where every generation can feel the power — and the healing — of the arts.
“We have to make the arts accessible to everyone,” she said. “Young people, families, people who’ve never stepped foot in a museum or a concert hall — all of them deserve to feel what art can do.”
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