Professional theater in Tacoma has had a rough time of it lately. A big company closed, smaller companies can’t find affordable space, and touring acts are half-filling houses.
But, with this month’s launch of Theatre Northwest, a group of local professionals intends to prove that a resident professional company can make it in Tacoma with an reinvented business model. The company debuts with the mystery play “The Final Toast” on Feb. 13 at Theatre on the Square in Tacoma.
Theatre Northwest began in Brett Carr’s imagination. The director and designer, who’s also vice president of Puget Sound Builders in Kent, regretted the demise of Tacoma Actors Guild in 2007 and what that meant for Theatre on the Square.
“I thought, what a shame this beautiful theater is just being used as a roadhouse,” says Carr. “Nothing against (presenters like) the Broadway Center, but people in Tacoma like consistency, familiarity.”
So Carr, who serves as the new company’s producing artistic director, made a mental list of theater colleagues he’d like to see form a resident company: all local, all professional with regional and national credits such as Tacoma Opera, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Metropolitan Opera. The result, he says, was a “dream team”– and to his surprise, all of them agreed to join up. Most live in Tacoma and nearby communities.
NEW BUSINESS MODEL
But talent alone isn’t enough to carry a company, as TAG – for whom many of Theatre Northwest’s members worked – proved. It also takes a loyal audience and smart management.
Theatre Northwest directors have confidence in the audience part. “There’s a very good theater audience in Tacoma,” says Rod Pilloud, a company resident director, who is directing its debut play. “They’re as astute as anywhere.”
“The Final Toast,” a mystery by Stuart Kaminsky, like the rest of the company’s season (“Educating Rita” in May, a Hollywood/Marx Brothers homage in October and “The Salvation of Iggy Scrooge” in December) is aimed at a broad audience, neither high- nor lowbrow.
“We as a company have a vision that we’re sticking to,” says Pilloud, who says one of TAG’s mistakes was to “pander a little” to its audience. “If you provide strong theater that is engaging and entertaining at the same time, audiences will come.”
Pilloud, who is stage manager at Seattle Shakespeare Company, acknowledges that this is a path followed by most professional theaters, but what’s different about Theatre Northwest is its business model. Although company members have show-by-show contracts, all except two Equity actors are waiting until enough tickets have been sold to get their pay, which will be pro rata depending on sales. The company also is setting an extremely low budget for initial shows: $20,000, as compared to some companies (such as those in Seattle) that repeatedly run $100,000 per show, says Carr.
The most significant savings, however, is the partnership Theatre Northwest has with the Broadway Center for Performing Arts, which manages and presents acts in the Pantages and Rialto theaters and Theatre on the Square. Broadway Center will supply administrative, ticketing and marketing services, as well as house costs for the theater itself. According to Carr, these services represent 60 percent of the operating budget – an enormous amount, and one that was part of the demise of TAG, since it shouldered all of the operating obligations alone.
“Brett couldn’t succeed if David Fischer weren’t doing this,” says Charlotte Tiencken, a Theatre Northwest resident director and former TAG director and current managing director of Book-It Repertory Theatre. Fischer is executive director at Broadway Center.
Both Theatre Northwest and Broadway Center officials say the partnership is something new. Linda Jacobs, spokeswoman for national organization the Theatre Communications Group in New York, agrees: “There’s not a flood of this kind of thing.”
Scott Stoner, chief programs officer for the national Association of Performing Arts Presenters, points out that in a worsening economy, such a model “is becoming more common. Presenters and companies need to find ways they can make things work.”
DONATED SERVICES
It could be a win-win situation for both partners. Theatre Northwest gets a financial leg up, and the Broadway Center gets a committed local theater company to attract audiences.
“We want to see local groups succeed, see the theater filled,” says Broadway Center deputy executive director Benjii Bittle.
The partnership also results in a lower cost structure for each show, which in turn lowers ticket prices. It’s great for audiences, Bittle says.
The new company also is receiving in-kind donations such as set-building space from Carr’s company Puget Sound Builders and set furniture pieces from Seldens Home Furnishings. This has saved the company more than $10,000, Carr estimates. Contributions from Theatre Northwest members themselves, such as Kim Izenman, the company’s charge artist, running the Web site and making phone calls from her home office, add to the grass-roots-style savings.
And although Carr is seeking startup donations, the company intends to support itself financially, he says, without constantly looking for handouts. The budget is based on a 50 percent model, whereby any ticket sales over half-house attendance go to finance the next play.
It’s a model Carr and other Theatre Northwest resident members hail as the future of professional theater.
“The old model of professional theater is broken,” says Theatre Northwest resident actor Steve Manning, who plays Mycroft Holmes in “The Final Toast.” “It’s administration-heavy, doing things the way they’ve always been done.”
Says resident actor Casi Wilkerson, who plays Regina: Our model is “a creative, collaborative way to keep theater alive.”
And many people are glad to see a resident professional company back in town, including Geoff Proehl, chairman of the theater department at the University of Puget Sound. “Our students need smaller theaters like this to incubate,” he says.
Says Tiencken: “A city is not a city unless it has professional culture surrounding it.”
CONFIDENT
Having seen the recent years of professional Tacoma theater, though, where small companies, such as The Horatio, postpone shows due to lack of affordable space and larger ones, such as TAG, simply close down, the question is inevitable: Will Theatre Northwest actually work?
“Time will tell,” says Proehl. “We have to find out what’s going to work in a town this size. It can be done: the Oregon Shakespeare Festival began in a similar way, in a town (Ashland) smaller than Tacoma. Now it’s one of the most successful in the world.”
This attempt, Izenman says, is “a little scary.”
But the company on the whole is confident. “Brett has put together an organization that’s lean and mean,” says Tiencken. “He’s putting money into production, not administration. That’s why he’s going to succeed.”
“People in theater think it’s not going to happen,” says Carr. “I think it is.”
Sherlock Holmes play ‘Final Toast’ adds elements of modern mystery
You don’t have to be a Sherlock Holmes fan to appreciate “The Final Toast.” But if you’re also a Stuart Kaminsky fan, you’re in for a double treat.
The Holmes-based mystery play that kicks off Tacoma’s new professional company, Theatre Northwest, is the regional premier of this new play by the Edgar Award-winning Kaminsky, one of America’s most popular mystery writers. And not only do you get Holmes acted on stage, you get Kaminsky in the audience.
The author will attend the play’s opening night and make two local appearances Feb. 15, speaking first at the Pierce County Library in Lakewood at 1 p.m., followed by a book signing at the Lakewood Barnes & Noble from 2 to 4 p.m.
“It’s a fascinating play,” says Steve Manning, who plays Sherlock’s brother Mycroft. “It’s in the style of Holmes, but a bit different.”
Kaminsky’s play, which received its world premiere earlier this year at the Kentucky International Mystery Writers’ Festival, is in fact subtitled “A Sherlock Holmes Entertainment,” and as such, says Manning, it’s not as dark or mysterious as the original tales. Holmes unravels a murder mystery, only to find himself the next target. With the help of the unassuming Watson, though, the detective turns the complex into the elementary.
“It’s more like a contemporary mystery novel,” says Manning – a fact which should appeal to fans of Kaminsky’s novels.
But fear not, Holmes fans. The play stays true to the original characters, say company members, and refers to many of Arthur Conan Doyle’s other stories.
“It’s like a trivia game,” says Casi Wilkerson, who plays Regina. “But you don’t have to be a buff to enjoy it.”
‘The Final Toast’
Who:
Theatre Northwest
When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 13, 14, 20, 21, 27, 28; 3 p.m. Feb. 28
Where: Theatre on the Square, 915 Broadway, Tacoma
Tickets: $22, $34
Reservations: 253-591-5894, www.broadwaycenter.org
Information:
www.theatrenorthwest.org
Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568
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