In March 2004, Denver’s tiny LIDA Project Theatre developed its own original examination of the Columbine massacre. It was an emotional production of intense local interest and import, and it drew media attention from around the world.
It just couldn’t draw flies to the theater. In 17 performances, it attracted 27 people per night.
Nine months later, the mediocre “Radio City Christmas Spectacular” touring amusement drew 159,041, at times turning around audiences of nearly 3,000 three times in a single day.
When it comes to the health of theater in Colorado, it all depends on whether you see the mask as half-comedy or half-tragedy.
On the smiley side, Colorado theaters drew 1.7 million patrons and generated $54 million in ticket revenue in 2004, according to a first-of-its-kind survey by The Denver Post.
In a state of 4.6 million people, “those numbers are astonishing, even to me,” said Steve Wilson, president of the Colorado Theatre Guild. “What that tells me is that theater as a central art form is very much alive and well in Colorado.”
But then there’s the tragic frown: Nearly half of those who attended the theater anywhere in Colorado went to a show at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. That’s great news for the largest performing-arts center between Chicago and Los Angeles. It is not such good news for the nearly 100 other theater companies in Colorado fighting over the other half.
“I think the numbers are pretty sad, frankly,” said Brian Freeland, artistic director of the experimental LIDA Project.
The economic imbalance between the haves and have-nots is stark. National touring productions, by far the most expensive ticket in Colorado theater, produced one-half of the total ticket revenue and one-third of the overall attendance. And when you combine those national touring productions with the state’s seven largest local theaters, they account for 91 percent of all ticket revenue.
That means more than 90 theater companies are generating less than 10 percent of all the money spent on theater tickets in Colorado.
“When you take those top institutions out of the equation, what do you have left?” said Freeland, who gave up the LIDA Project’s downtown space last year after generating just less than $12,000 in ticket revenue for the year.
“The health of any community isn’t just determined by what’s happening at the top,” he said. “You have to consider the entire ecology. When 90 percent of the revenue is going to the seven or eight biggest organizations, that doesn’t seem very healthy to me.”
Wilson agreed that the greatest challenge facing the Colorado theater community is “building a middle.” But he added, “You can’t get to a point where you have seven companies generating more than $1 million in annual revenue until you have ninety-something other companies building a groundswell of good work.”
The DCPA includes the Denver Center Theatre Company, which produces its own plays and musicals, and Denver Center Attractions, which brings national touring shows, such as “The Producers,” to Denver, while staging some of its own material, such as “Always … Patsy Cline.”
Local companies grouse about how hard it is to get Denver Center audiences to leave their comfort zones, but it’s debatable whether the center really pulls audiences away from smaller theaters in large numbers.
“Imagine that the Denver Center did not exist. Would all those people be going to another, small theater instead?” Wilson asked. “Probably not.”
Imagining Denver without the Denver Center isn’t something any theater lover should want to do. In 2004, DCA drew more than 512,000 to its touring productions and nearly 90,000 to its homegrown productions, the latter making it the third-largest producing theater company in the state behind the DCTC and the Country Dinner Playhouse.
The DCTC drew 174,099 to its 10 productions.
“What these numbers tell me is that the original vision for the Denver Center … was right on the money,” said Randy Weeks, president of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
The survey (in which 98 of the 99 companies participated) found there were 7,578 performances around the state last year, or about 21 per night.
The competition for audiences is stiffest in the metro area, where just this year 14 companies that produced at least one show last year already have gone dead or dormant.
In contrast, statewide theater is quite healthy. The 32 companies outside the metro area generated $6.1 million in sales.
In Grand Junction, for example, the Cabaret Dinner Theatre drew nearly 57,000 people and generated $2.25 million in revenue. The Metro Playhouse drew nearly 11,000 and took in $500,000.
Even the Creede Repertory Theater in the small, remote town in southern Colorado managed to attract more than 11,000 theater lovers to its 41-year-old summer festival.
Fewer than half of all Colorado companies presented full seasons of at least four productions throughout the year. Thirty of the 99 Colorado companies drew fewer than 1,200 patrons for the entire year.
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-820-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
