“The day I retire is the day they take me out of here in a box.”
Donald R. Seawell said so in 2002, and he meant it. And anyone who knows anything about the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ founder and chairman believed him. So what if he’s now 94? Seawell has been in charge since the day he envisioned the place in a ghostly part of downtown in 1972.
Seawell built the DCPA into the largest regional theater between Chicago and the West Coast, offering 11,260 seats in 11 performance venues. What he has done for Denver may make him the most significant cultural figure in its history.
That’s why news of Seawell’s transfer from chairman to “chairman emeritus” marks possibly the most significant transfer of power at any Denver arts organization in history.
As recently as December 2004, Seawell wouldn’t even entertain the thought of relinquishing his dual titles as chief operating officer and chairman. “I’m just getting started,” he said at the time.
Seawell has since been engineering a long-overdue transition of power to setting the center’s course of direction for the next decade. He named Randy Weeks president of the DCPA and Kent Thompson artistic director of the Denver Center Theatre Company. But trustees believed the last necessary change must be replacing Seawell – those he already had replaced were 30 years his junior.
Also in December 2004, members of the DCPA’s 21-member board of trustees made it clear they would vote to split Seawell’s two titles if necessary within 18 months. Not as a comment on his age or accomplishments, but simply to bring the structure of the DCPA’s administration in line with more traditional nonprofits.
Weeks was made chief operating officer at the time he was named president. The last step comes Tuesday, when the trustees are expected to approve University of Denver chancellor emeritus Daniel L. Ritchie as the new chairman.
And the decision to leave was Seawell’s, who spent months convincing Ritchie to take the job. “I’m 94,” Seawell said. “It’s time.”
New touring landscape
Nine months ago, Weeks proclaimed, “the golden age of national tours has ended.” And though his newly announced 2007 season is a match for any of his most golden years, he’s not backing off that statement yet.
“It could be a long time before we experience the type of consistent, 10-to-15-year period where one producer like Cameron Mackintosh has four shows available at any time,” he said.
Well, there’s Disney, with whom he is partnering to bring “The Little Mermaid” to Broadway with an advance Denver run next summer. Denver now takes a tiny role in Disney’s continuing takeover of Broadway. Though “Aida” is (thankfully) gone, Disney’s New York lineup now sports “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King,” “Tarzan” and, in October, “Mary Poppins.”
Still, he acknowledged, “This year certainly feels more like the good old days, when we actually had very attractive titles to choose from.” Those titles include Monty Python’s “Spamalot,” “The Light in the Piazza,” “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.”
The season also marks a new trend. Presenting companies like Denver Center Attractions no longer are sitting back waiting for proven Broadway material to come to them.
“We are taking a much more proactive approach,” Weeks said. In addition to teaming with Disney on “The Little Mermaid,” DCA is joining forces with two presenting companies to create an Irving Berlin revue, “White Christmas.” That collaboration will debut in Seattle in December, then come to Denver in 2007 and Houston in ’08.
DCA’s most encouraging collaboration is with its Denver Center sister company. When Denver Center Theatre Company artistic director Kent Thompson decided it was time for our local regional theater to stage its own Broadway musical in the intimate Stage Theatre (“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”), Weeks saw a perfect opportunity to move his Broadway series subscribers across the arcade from the Buell Theater and into the DCTC’s theater complex.
“More and more organizations are taking control of their own destiny by creating their own new material,” Weeks said. “We are particularly fortunate because the DCA didn’t have to look very far to find a producing partner in the DCTC.”
Celebrity cannibals
Breckenridge’s Backstage Theatre will present Trey Parker’s “Cannibal! The Musical,” the stage adaptation of his 1996 film, from Oct. 27-31. Parker and fellow “South Park” creator Matt Stone may even show up.
“Trey has been helping us with ideas for staging the show,” said Backstage artistic director Chris Willard. “He and Matt are building a joint home for their families in Steamboat Springs and are visiting Colorado quite frequently to monitor progress. If their shooting schedule allows, they’ll be here.
“Many of the film’s cast members are still in the area. And for the show to be staged in Breckenridge – a location that figures so prominently in the story – it all seems too tempting a scenario to pass up.”
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
