Texas Ballet Theater has ended an eight-month search and named Nicholas Dragga its next executive director, bringing him home from Pennsylvania. Currently the executive director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Dragga will assume the role on January 1, 2027. He succeeds Interim Executive Director Jill Caughron, who will remain with TBT through the end of the year to support the transition.
“Jill’s leadership has been an invaluable part of Texas Ballet Theater’s continued growth,” said Board Chair Susan Glassmoyer. “She has guided this organization with tremendous care, steadiness, and commitment, and we are grateful for the foundation she has strengthened.”
The appointment arrives during a period of expansion for Texas Ballet Theater, which performs as the resident ballet company of both the Winspear Opera House in Dallas and Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth and has continued investing in its company, school, and facilities across North Texas.
At TBT, Dragga will work alongside Artistic Director Tim O’Keefe, pairing the company’s artistic ambitions with his experience in supporting ballet with an engaged community.
“In one of the most dynamic cultural markets in the country, Texas Ballet Theater is at a profound moment with world-class facilities, a company of real depth, an artistic vision with room to launch, and its greatest asset, a staff and board whose energy and expertise are as deep as they are contagious,” Dragga says.
A Texas native and Red Raider, Dragga joined Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in 2023 after a 12-year stint as Executive Director of Ballet Lubbock. During his tenure, the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre reported record contributed and earned revenue, with annual operational contributed revenue surpassing $4.9 million. PBT also recorded its two highest-grossing performance seasons, while restructuring efforts produced more than $1.3 million in annual savings without reducing its programming. It followed what he did in Lubbock, where the organization’s annual operating budget grew from approximately $500,000 to more than $2.4 million, and its assets increased from $700,000 to more than $14 million. His tenure there also included one of the organization’s most significant physical expansions. Dragga led the design, capital campaign, construction, and relocation of Ballet Lubbock into a 22,000-square-foot facility within the Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences. It’s an impressive resume, to say the least.
That experience in building both infrastructure and audiences appears particularly relevant as TBT continues to expand its presence across Dallas and Fort Worth.
“Hospitality is not the soft part of this work,” Dragga says. “It is how a company earns its place in a community, and how everyone who walks through our doors comes to know they belong there.”
That emphasis on access extends through his previous work in education and outreach. At Ballet Lubbock, its school grew to more than 400 youth academy students, while its Dance Connect Community Engagement Program served roughly 600 students. Community initiatives included free dance instruction across 23 elementary schools in six districts, an Arts in Medicine partnership and an expanded Adaptive Dance program.
For O’Keefe, the appointment also creates a new leadership partnership at a moment when the company is considering how to balance ballet’s traditions with new works and broader community engagement.
“What immediately stood out to me was the breadth of his experience and his genuine understanding of what it takes to build a thriving ballet organization,” O’Keefe says. “He has a remarkable record of strengthening companies while creating opportunities for artists, students, and communities to engage more deeply with the art form.”
When Dragga arrives in January, he will inherit a company with ambitions extending beyond what happens onstage, a task he has a track record of completing.