For its 30th-birthday present, the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities is getting something it’s never had before: A real indoor theater, built for real indoor theater.
For three decades, the state’s third-largest theater company has presented some of the most professional theater this side of Broadway, and it has done so it in a cavernous, 500-seat lecture hall.
“When our mainstage was built in 1976, it wasn’t really defined as a theater,” said artistic director Rod Lansberry. “It was a multipurpose facility that was built to accommodate concerts, lectures, performances … a little bit of everything.”
Tuesday, the city-owned Arvada Center unveils a 200-seat jewel called the Black Box Theatre with a limited engagement of “Sister’s Christmas Catechism.” The state-of-the- art addition to the northeast corner of the center completes the $7.2 million Phase 2 of an ongoing $69 million expansion.
Adding flexibility
“Black box” is one of those cold industry terms that in fact refers to warmer, more intimate performing spaces – though at 200 seats, the Arvada Center’s qualifies as one of the larger theaters in the metro area.
“What this space gives us is flexibility,” said Lansberry. “It definitely opens up more options for us as far as what shows we do, and where we do them. And within a few years, it probably will allow us to expand our season somewhat.”
The Arvada Center presents a six-show theater season that draws about 78,000 a year. Financial losses ended the tradition of an annual outdoor summer musical extravaganza in 2002. Now those big Broadway musicals that were forced indoors will dominate the mainstage season. Smaller dramas such as recent hits “Intimate Apparel,” “Crimson Thread” and “The Drawer Boy” can now be performed in the more appropriate Black Box, where there won’t be as much pressure to sell 500 seats per performance.
Fitting shows to space
The new space also will make it more feasible to extend mainstage hits by moving them into the Black Box. Now, performing-arts director Kathy Kuehn said, the show can fit the space.
“Right now, when you might want to extend, you are looking at having to sell 4,000 seats for just one week (eight performances),” Lansberry said. That same one-week extension in the new theater will require the sale of only 1,600 seats.
“Everything is a risk, but the risks are more viable now,” he said.
After the one-woman “Catechism” christens the Black Box, the space will be used for a variety of purposes, Kuehn said. Theater events include “Queen of Bingo” (Feb. 6-18) and next summer’s Playwrights Showcase of the Western Region.
More children’s shows
“We’ll also be looking at doing more children’s shows, and more theater for young adults in there,” Lansberry said.
The Black Box will host the popular annual “Cowboy Poetry” readings, a silent-film series accompanied by a live orchestra, dances and various rentals.
The programming isn’t all that will be flexible. Seating in the Black Box is “transformational,” meaning the sections are mobile and can be set up in varying configurations.
Urban renewal funds
The Arvada Center expansion has been in the works for six years. But the big dreams of 2000 turned into much more modest phases after 9/11. The project was kick- started in 2003 when, by sheer fortuitousness, the Arvada Center came into funds set aside by the Arvada Urban Renewal Authority.
“Twenty-some years ago, the area north of Wadsworth Boulevard and I-70 had been twilighted, and some of that money was now coming back into the city,” said Kuehn. “A lot of people had laundry lists, and we were fortunate to be at the top of the list.”
Phase 2 includes construction of a new performing-arts shop, dedicated rehearsal space and self-contained dressing rooms with showers. New patios and gathering spots dot the area outside. The second phase also saw expansion of the art gallery and history museum, improvements to the ballroom, additional rest- rooms, landscaping and 60 new parking spaces.
One thing you won’t see with the doubling of new theaters is a season that suddenly doubles in titles. At least not right away.
“The reason is that our market hasn’t gown that much, and so our annual budget hasn’t increased that much, either,” Lansberry said.
“So, yeah, it might be nice to put six shows in one space and six shows in the other, but do we have really a market for 12 shows a year? Or do you start to eat away at your own market?
“I’ve always said that once we get this going, it’s going to be a three-year growth period until we are up to normal speed.”
Theater critic John Moore can be reached at 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com.
“Sister’s Christmas Catechism”
COMEDY|Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd. (in the new Black Box Theatre)|Written by Maripat Donovan|Starring Nonie Newton-Breen
THROUGH DEC. 17|7 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. Saturdays, 1:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. Sundays|$36-$40|720-898-7200 or arvadacenter.org
