Decades of changes – and seasons of surprises

Member of ticketing department to retire after 42 years.

Longtime Northrop employee Candy Lord has worked in the ticketing department for more than four decades and plans to retire this month. We sat down with her this summer to ask her about her time with Northrop, the highlights, and her love for the performing arts. Here are some excerpts of that interview.

• Candy has worked for Northrop for 42 years and before that for the Minnesota Orchestra.
• Candy reflects on dance’s role and how it was perceived by audiences during a time when contemporary dance was beginning to emerge.
• Candy reminisces about her favorite performance, singer Alberta Hunter, who was featured as part of Northrop’s jazz/blues series in the early 1980s.
• The Metropolitan Opera visited Northrop often in Candy’s early days of working at Northrop. Here she describes the massive production that went into a show and the large audiences they brought.
• Candy describes the “old-fashioned” processes of ticketing before the era of credit cards and digital systems.

• Candy explores the ways in which Northrop has consistently continued to offer unique dance experiences by exposing important, controversial ideas through dance.