2019 Women in Building Services: Alexa Antopol, Fisher Dachs Associates

Name: Alexa Antopol

Title: Chief Intelligence Officer

Company Name: Fisher Dachs Associates

How many years have you been in your current field? 5

List up to three CRE organizations that you are currently a member of:

• SMPS

What was your greatest professional achievement or most notable project in the last 12 months?
My favorite theatre we opened in 2018 is the renovated Helen Hayes Theater. This project expanded Second Stage’s campus from two stages to three, filling a void on Broadway with new American plays from diverse voices, and broadening the company’s impact on both artists and theatregoers. As an actress, Helen Hayes had a huge impact on American theatre–an 80-year career as the “First Lady of the Theatre,” a National Medal of Arts, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, an EGOT. The theatre that bears her name might be the smallest on Broadway but it’s one of the most significant in the NYC theatre world. 

What trend(s) do you predict to dominate your industry in 2019?
We’re living in a time of great social, political, economic, and climate-related upheaval. More and more folks in the performing arts are engaging in progressive activist theatremaking. The theatres we create are now host to a spectrum of charged activity directed at making change. Buildings for the performing arts will become more open and accessible for audiences, and adaptable for styles of performance artists are developing now. 

Performing artists are driven not only by the beauty of the world, but also conflict. The work they create influences the buildings we design–our venues amplify their voices.

Which of your philanthropic endeavors are you most proud of?
In 2018, I raised over $2,000 for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, a charity partner of New York Road Runners, as I trained for and ran the New York City Half-Marathon (not my first half-marathon, but my first go at this particular race). Last spring was an especially difficult time for my childhood friend Amy due to her cystic fibrosis, and this fundraiser is one of the ways in which I support her and the entire CF community. I’m running the NYC Half again this year and hope to raise even more funds and awareness for Amy and the CFF.

What does it mean to you to be a team player? 
Being a team player means not only supporting my colleagues in their work on our performing arts projects, but also being an active listener and keeping up with what’s going on in their lives. I love to see the shows they’re working on (or their loved ones are performing in), learning what makes the performing arts important to them, listening to their stories about how their paths led them to FDA and the work they love. We’re not just working together, we’re in this whole experience together. The performing arts brought us all together and make us who we are.