Carrie Clevenger-Gwartney: Living for the Arts

By Kyra McNamara

It was a quiet afternoon at the Tulsa Ballet building at 45th and Peoria when I met Carrie Clevenger-Gwartney, the box office manager and marketing associate for the Tulsa Ballet. With an easy smile she welcomed me into her office behind the glass-encased ticketing desk.

Carrie, who first moved to Tulsa in 1994, was familiar with the Ballet and the people who worked there, so when a position came open, she eagerly took it. “It is an incredible arts organization, and I’m very proud of it,” Carrie said. With undergraduate and graduate degrees in theater from NSU and ORU respectively, Carrie is excited to be working in the arts here in Tulsa.

Carrie met her husband Nathan in 2001 as his co-star in a production of Grease. They played love interests Rizzo and Kenickie. As it happened, I met her on their 8th anniversary.

The couple’s love of theater is something they have shared over the years. A picture of Nathan from the play Moon Over Buffalo is tacked to the bulletin board beside her desk.

Carrie said that one of her favorite productions she has worked on is a play she directed in graduate school called Coyote on a Fence, pictured at the top left corner of her bulletin board. Even though she loves performing, Carrie said her real love is directing.

“I love pulling together the whole creative process, just conceptualizing it, trying to figure out what you want,” Carrie said. “You take the script and you build on that, build a concept, and I love that process.”

Carrie and her husband are working on putting together an independent production of the Greek play Medea for next summer. As Carrie says, these are the “baby steps” toward the independent theater group she and Nathan are trying to form. The final performance will be in the Tulsa Ballet’s very own Studio K.

It’s been a year and a half since Carrie and her husband moved to their house near 41st and Peoria. She says her favorite thing about living there is being close to everything she needs, from the library, to entertainment, to work. “Right now I’m just enjoying being where I’m at,” says Carrie.