Just Thursday, the New Denver Civic Theatre posted a closing notice for “The Great American Trailer Park Musical,” effective just 48 hours later, following the Saturday night performance of Oct. 6.
But this morning, Civic ownership representative Richard Bernstein agreed to allow the show to run at least through Oct. 21. The Civic is a professional theater company, and under Actors Equity rules, any closing notice must come with at least two weeks notice.
“We woke up this morning thinking we were done,” said Alex Ryer, the star of the show, and one of its producers. “But we really believe in this show, and we hope we can turn things around in the next two weeks.”
The well-received tuner opened Aug. 10, and an extension was recently announced through Nov. 18. The show originally had been scheduled to close Sept. 23, but strong-enough attendance warranted the extension. A cast change was announced as well to accommodate the longer run, with Melinda Dickson set to replace departing New York-based star Brooke Wilson, who plays a stripper with a heart too tarnished to be called quite gold. The musical looks endearingly at life in a Florida trailer park.
The musical is not being produced by the Civic, rather by The Nile Company, a local group run by Gary Schnell and Ryer. They rented the Civic from its New York-based owners, Sibling Entertainment. Shortly after the original closing date passed, attendance plummeted from 60 percent capacity to 20.
On Thursday, Bernstein said enough was enough. The show was losing too much money to warrant its continuation.
“I’m a reasonable guy, but I can’t bleed profusely and just let it happen,” Bernstein said Friday. “We were working strictly on a percentage of the gross, and we were losing money every week. This was a unique financial arrangement, and I’m never going to do it that way again.”
So why then even allow The Nile Company to extend into November? Bernstein said that was his mistake. “I was told that they were going to be launching a major promotional push, but in the end, it was too little too late.”
Schnell said the day Bernstein closed the show, he had put 30,000 postcards in the mail. He also launched $10,000 media and advertising campaign to promote the extension.
There is some question whether Bernstein has violated terms of the contract by agreeing to a November extension and then almost immediately shutting the show down. “That’s a legal opinion,” Bernstein said, “but according to our interpretation of the agreement, we had stop clauses.”
Bernstein calls himself a fan of the show. “I was considering partnering with them to send the show out on tour, even taking it to Las Vegas,” he said. “I’d still like to see it work, but it has to make sense.”
He said should the show’s attendance appreciably spike in the next two weeks, he would be open to allowing it to continue. But it’s now or never.
Bernstein emphasized that the Denver Civic is in no danger of closing. He said this is a busy time for Sibling, which is in the process of converting to a publicly traded company. “So we’re not going to be producing any of our own shows for a while,” he said, “But we have a lot of producers who are very interested in coming in with their shows.”
For tickets to “Trailer Park,” call 303-309-3773. The Civic is located at At 721 Santa Fe Dr.
