I am sorry that it has been over a year since I've published an article in this blog. I've been working full-time in New Brunswick, so time for writing has been scarce. I have written an article for American Theatre magazine, though, which you can find by following this link: http://www.americantheatre.
Who Owns
Your Theatre? by Lisa Lacroce Patterson
“It’s coming down,” the Producing Artistic
Director said casually in the theater’s lobby last year.
“What’s coming
down?” the patron asked.
“The building.
It’s going to be torn down. I’m not sure when, but we’re going to be homeless
for a while.”
Even though it was
only 26 years old, Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ, along with the adjacent George Street Playhouse,
is now being razed to make room for a $215 million high-rise to be built on a combination of public
and private lots. The proposed 25-story tower will have two theaters similar in
size to the old Crossroads and George Street, along with some rehearsal
studios, a few floors of offices, and will be topped off by several levels of
apartments.
To varying degrees, Crossroads and George Street
have been involved in planning the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, and they
vacated their buildings in the spring and will be displaced for at least two
years. “It’s a good thing,” Marshall Jones, Crossroads’ Producing
Artistic Director, says encouragingly. “George Street had outgrown their
building. We are all optimistic that this will be a great opportunity for us to
continue doing what we do in a new arts center that meets the needs of our
audiences and artists.”
Crossroads Theatre
Company, one of the nation’s premier African American theatres, was founded in
1978. In 1991, Crossroads moved from its modest 120-seat theatre into
the $4 million theatre facility built especially for them with funds raised by
the New Brunswick Cultural Center. The facility, situated next to the George Street Playhouse and
the historic presenting State Theatre New Jersey, was four stories
tall and contained a 350-seat theatre, spaces for set and costume shops,
rehearsal studios and offices. Generous, right?
Crossroads
Theatre in New Brunswick, NJ, demolition in progress.
Photo by Lisa Lacroce
Patterson
While Crossroads was the
beneficiary of a brand-new theater in which to operate, there were many strings
attached, including the fact that it was obligated to pay market-rate rent, and
it was responsible for the operations, utilities and upkeep of the entire
building. This crippled the small theater company, and, shortly after it was awarded
the 1999 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, it shut down with a debt
of over $2 million.
Over the next several years,
and with a lot of help, Crossroads’ debt was in part paid-off, in part
forgiven. Jones, an Associate Professor of Theater at Rutgers’ Mason Gross
School of the Arts with two decades of theater management experience, was hired
to resuscitate the company in 2007, just in time for the economic crisis of
2008. It’s been a struggle ever since, but despite ongoing financial difficulties,
Jones has managed to produce exceptional work over the past ten years.
After his challenging
experience maintaining the Crossroads building, Jones is hoping that this new
performing arts center will provide the support they’ve long needed, but nothing
is guaranteed as of yet. This season, Jones is launching “Crossroads on the
Road,” with productions at Middlesex County College, NJ PAC and Rutgers
University. George Street Playhouse, meanwhile, will be presenting its season in the former home of the
Agricultural Museum of NJ on Rutgers’ Douglass College campus in New Brunswick.
David Saint, the Artistic Director of George Street who has directed in 34
theatres across the country, says, “We are beyond thrilled that the New
Brunswick Performing Arts Center is coming to fruition after 15 years of
planning. Joseph Papp once said, ‘Theaters are like grapes – they grow better
in bunches.’ I couldn’t agree with him more!”
***
Crossroads’ experiences
raise the important question of theater ownership and how it affects operations
and programming. Let’s take a look at some other ownership scenarios
around the country.
Self-Ownership
There are plusses to owning and operating
one’s own building. You can set your own
schedule without having to take into consideration potential conflicts with
partner organizations or the whims of a landlord. You are in control. Of
course, you are then responsible for all the upkeep of your building, partially
shifting a portion of the organization’s focus from theatrical production to
property management, but some would say that it’s a small price to pay.
An example of
apparently idyllic self-ownership is Writers
Theatre (WT), a 25-year-old company that opened two new performance spaces
under one roof in Glencoe, IL, (just north of Chicago) last year after
completing a $33 million capital campaign.
Writers
Theatre in Glencoe, IL. Photo by Steve Hall © Hedrich Blessing
The
only complication is that the land on which the beautiful new theatre is situated
is the property of The Woman’s Library Club of Glencoe, which owned the
building that previously stood on the lot and which Writers Theatre had rented
and outgrown. WT now holds a 99-year lease on the land, for which it pays an
annual rent of $1, and both organizations share the facility.
“The Writers Theatre has enjoyed a strong
relationship with the Woman’s Library Club since we first partnered in sharing
the building,” says WT founding Artistic Director Michael Halberstam.
“The members are very respectful of our schedule and happy to leave
the maintenance and stewardship of the property to us. We were able to
build our theatre center in the center of the Village of Glencoe owing to
the club’s trust and generosity, and the club has been able to boost membership
as a result of having a gorgeous new home.”
Ownership by a For-Profit Organization
Founded in 1973 in Philadelphia, the Wilma
Project, renamed the Wilma Theater
in 1981, also eventually outgrew its space. After a seven-year planning process
that included an ambitious capital campaign, the Wilma opened its distinctive, new
theatre on Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts in 1996 in a building on a prime
commercial lot, both owned by a private developer, for which it holds a 99-year
lease.
According to James Haskins, Managing Director,
“We are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the internal systems. Now
that the building is twenty years old, we are facing the challenges of
operating in an aging facility. A very significant way we are addressing these
challenges is by transforming our lobby into a full-service café and renovating
our façade.” In January, the Wilma
announced a $10 million capital campaign to set up what they call a
“Transformation Fund” that will allow for these and other upgrades.
Rendering
of the planned refreshed façade of the Hugh Hardy-designed
Wilma Theater on the
Avenue of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA.
Image courtesy of Kristen Robinson
Wilma Theater’s Artistic Director, Blanka Zizka, has this to say on the subject: “Having a space is both a dream and trap. Artists have to be open to the world, flexible, and nimble. Space offers continuity, but sometimes it becomes restrictive. Live performance needs a space; having an intimate knowledge of your space is both satisfying and also challenging. That same knowledge of your space can turn into comfort and even routine. The space is demanding. It needs to be taken care of. It needs to be programmed. It has expectations. It asks for calendars and rules. Art asks for none of that. Art asks for learning, risk taking, experimentation. Space needs to serve the art. But in many institutions, that notion gets turned around and art ends up serving the space. This tension between space and art is something that is constantly on my mind.”
University
Ownership
Other theater
managers, like Marshall Jones, might counter that collaboration with a
university is preferable. McCarter Theatre, the 1994 Regional Theatre
Tony Award-winning theater company in Princeton, NJ, produces its work in a
building owned by Princeton University that dates to 1930. Thirty years after
it opened, at the beginning of the great American regional theater movement,
“McCarter Theatre Company” began producing plays there, receiving independent
501 (c)(3) status in 1963. Ten years later, McCarter took over all artistic
programming of the building and began paying an annual nominal rent to the
University. The University still
periodically uses the building for special events, but McCarter operates
independently as a full-service producing and presenting organization.
The
façade of the Matthews Theatre,
the largest performance space in McCarter
Theatre Center, Princeton, NJ.
Photo by Matt Pilsner
The
construction of the 373-seat Berlind Theatre in 2003 led to the creation of a
new organizational title, “McCarter Theatre Center for the Performing
Arts.” However, McCarter does not have exclusive
use of the Berlind, as 50% of the construction cost was provided via a
partnership with the University. In exchange, the University uses it in the
fall and spring, for a total academic use of approximately 16 weeks. Even with
that use, McCarter's Managing Director Tim Shields says, "McCarter Theatre’s
ability to have a theatre such as the Berlind has provided so much to our
artistry and to our patrons. We’re so
appreciative of the myriad of ways in which the University and McCarter join
forces in support of the arts."
There can be
confusion among McCarter’s patrons, some of whom believe that the organization
is wholly owned by the University and thus might not need their contributions.
McCarter works hard to get the correct messaging out in order to maximize its
fundraising efforts, and overall the relationship is overwhelmingly positive.
“There are many
benefits to running a theater company from a university-owned building,” says
Jeff Woodward, former Managing Director of both McCarter and Syracuse Stage, which operates out of
Syracuse University in New York. “Even though McCarter had to raise its own
money for renovations, a university is better equipped for building maintenance
than a theater company is. At Princeton, there was one guy whose only job was
to fix doors!” He went on to explain that the situation at Syracuse Stage was
different in that the University was much more integrated with the theater, as
classes were held in the building and there were always students around. But it
was still a great partnership. “I would encourage any theatre company to forge
a strong relationship with a college or university. Princeton students
benefited from being taught by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee
and legendary South African playwright Athol Fugard while I was there. That
never would have happened if it wasn’t for McCarter.”
Not every
university-theater partnership, however, is ideal. Huntington Theatre Company’s recent experience showed that even a
mutually beneficial relationship with a university can go wrong. In 2015,
Boston University, which founded the theater company in 1982 and owned the
95-year-old Boston University Theatre in which Huntington operated for 33
years, announced its intention to sell the theater and two adjoining buildings.
Over the years, the free use of the theater and cash contributions from the
University are estimated to total more than $40 million.
Huntington,
which became an independent non-profit in 1986, tried to buy the buildings, but
the University accepted a higher bid from a local developer. After much public
outcry and the strong support of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, the new owners have
agreed to donate the historic theater to the Huntington and give the company a
99-year lease on an additional 14.000 square feet for a new entrance and new
public spaces in the high-rise they are planning to build adjacent to the
theatre. Now, Huntington will control the playhouse, which was America’s first
tax-exempt theater, and must start a $60 million capital campaign for
maintenance, restoration and improvements that had long been deferred by the
University.
The
historic Boston University Theatre,
where the Huntington Theatre Company
operates.
Photo by Paul Marotta
Public
Ownership
Jeff Woodward
is now the Managing Director of Dallas
Theatre Center (DTC), part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center (ATT PAC),
which is owned by the City of Dallas. According to Woodward, when a facility
was recently flooded, the City and ATT PAC had to work out whose insurance was
going to cover it, but DTC was blissfully not involved that administrative
labyrinth. “ATT PAC, which is an independent non-profit, is responsible for the
operation and maintenance of the complex. DTC has a lease with ATT PAC, not the
City,” Woodward reports. “The City of Dallas provides an annual gift to the
PAC, but as far as I’m aware, stays out of the day-to-day activity. I think
this is a successful partnership because it allows the PAC to be a bit more
nimble than a large municipality in maintenance, renovation and operational
needs.”
Perhaps Marshall
Jones sums it up best when he says, “If you look at the building as the hardware and the plays as the
software, I am more interested in the software, and the artists. I’m not interested in fixing broken toilets.
Managing a plant is onerous. The theater was a blessing and a curse. In the new
theater, it will be a new era for Crossroads – the building will not be our
identity. The work will be, and I welcome that.”
On the whole, regional theater
companies that can focus on their work rather than on property management
benefit from the support of their proprietors because the fulfillment of their
missions can be more easily achieved.
Of the nine theatres referenced
in this article, freelance writer Lisa Lacroce Patterson has worked for four of
them: The Wilma Theater, McCarter Theatre Center, Crossroads Theatre, and she
is currently on the State Theatre New Jersey’s development staff.
