The Denver Center for the Performing Arts was braced for the most challenging financial year in its 36-year history.
“And the worst never came,” president Randy Weeks said after the release of the 2008-09 annual report last week.
The report shows plenty of fallout from the current economic downturn: in attendance, ticket revenues, subscribed seats and giving. But there’s nothing approaching disastrous, mostly because of smaller-cast shows and individual sacrifice, such as across-the-board salary cuts of 1 to 3 percent (Weeks and Denver Center Theatre Company artistic director Kent Thompson voluntarily took 10 percent hits).
The DCPA operates two presenting wings — the DCTC, which produces up to 12 homegrown plays a year; and Denver Center Attractions, which hosts big, national touring productions like “Spring Awakening” and also puts on its own cabaret shows like the runaway hit “Girls Only,” now in its 16th month at the Galleria Theatre.
Combined ticket revenue was down 3.4 percent, from $31.3 million to $30.2 million. DCA attendance was down 10.4 percent, to 442,381, which doesn’t mean much because of often huge disparities in year-to-year programming. More troubling was the 12 percent drop for the theater company, to 169,376, even though it presented one more play than the year before.
Of most concern has to be the drop, expected as it was, in subscribed seats — those whose attendance came from purchasing a package as opposed to single seats. That number was down 16 percent for the theater company.
“The general trend across the country was that subscriptions were already trending down, and then kablam, we had this economic thing, and now you are really starting to see an impact,” Weeks said. But subscriptions are trending back up for the current year.
One area of great success at the DCPA each year is in individual, corporate, foundation and other support, which fell from $3.6 million to a still remarkable $3.5 million. The center takes its biggest hits when corporate donors merge or go away, and it’s happening. Season sponsor Lehman Brothers folded, “and when Wells Fargo bought (fellow sponsor) Wachovia,” Weeks said, “the check they wrote us didn’t suddenly double.”
The bottom line is that the DCPA is still selling tickets, Weeks said. “We aren’t out of the woods, but the people of Denver continue to support us on both sides of the street.”
Denver’s farm team
New-play development in this country is more like baseball than you might ever think. Aggressive companies build up their own farm teams by developing prospects, and then hope when they hit the big time, they remember who helped get them there.
Major playwrights are, for the most part, free agents who freelance for individual companies on a commission basis — a leap of faith (and show of cash) by a given company in a play not yet written.
Thompson and Bruce Sevy have built up the DCTC’s farm team considerably, from nothing a few years ago to more than 20 writing plays in various stages of development. It’s becoming clear who’s on “our team,” at least for now — names like Octavio Solis (“Lydia”), Jason Grote (“1001”), Michele Lowe (“Inana”), Eric Schmiedl (“Plainsong”) and more.
In February, the DCTC’s fifth annual Colorado New Play Summit will be anchored by full world premiere stagings of “When Tang Met Laika,” by Rogelio Martinez, and “Eventide,” Schmiedl’s adaptation of Kent Haruf’s “Plainsong” sequel.
Last week, Thompson announced the four developing new plays that will be given staged readings at the Feb. 11-13 Summit: “The House of the Spirits,” Caridad Svich’s stage adaptation of Isabel Allende’s best seller; Lowe’s “Map of Heaven,” which explores the devastating consequences of a single lapse in judgment; Ken Weitzman’s “The Catch,” about a failed dot-commer who plots to regain his fortune by catching a star slugger’s record-breaking-home-run ball; and Grote’s “Civilization (All You Can Eat),” described as “a fierce burlesque of America’s love/ hate obsession with food.”
For more on the featured plays, For more information on the Colorado New Play Summit, call 303-893-4100.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
This week’s theater openings
Opening Monday, Dec. 14, through Dec. 30: Jester’s Dinner Theatre’s “Scrooge” Longmont
Opening Tuesday, Dec. 15, through Dec. 27: National touring production of “Little House on the Prairie,” Buell Theatre
Thursday, Dec. 17, through Saturday, Dec. 19 only: Picketwire Players’ “Christmas Magic in the Air” LaJunta
Opening Friday, Dec. 18, through Jan. 2: Crested Butte Mountain Theatre’s “Miracle on 34th Street”
Saturday, Dec. 19, and Sunday, Dec. 20 only: Longmont Theatre Company’s “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”
This week’s theater closings
Today, Dec. 13: National touring production of “Spring Awakening,” Buell Theatre
Today, Dec. 13: Germinal Stage-Denver’s “Anna Christie”
Today, Dec. 13: Festival Playhouse’s “Not a Creature Was Stirring” Arvada
Today, Dec. 13: Today: Evergreen Players’ “A Christmas Carol”
Friday, Dec. 18: The Avenue’s “Santa’s Big Red Sack”
Saturday, Dec. 19: Denver Center Theatre Company’s “Well” and “Absurd Person Singular”
Saturday, Dec. 19: Saturday: LIDA Project’s “Balls! A Holiday Spectacular (PG-16)”
Saturday, Dec. 19: Saturday: E-Project’s Today, Dec. 13: “Miracle on 34th Street”
Saturday, Dec. 19: Saturday: Thunder River’s “Visiting Mr. Green,” Carbondale
Sunday, Dec. 20: Su Teatro’s “The Westside Oratorio” at the King Center
Sunday, Dec. 20: Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company’s “The SantaLand Diaries,” Dairy Center
Sunday, Dec. 20: Buntport’s “Something Is Rotten”
Sunday, Dec. 20: Shadow Theatre’s “The Christmas of the Angels”
Sunday, Dec. 20: TheatreWorks’ “The Mystery of Irma Vep” Colorado Springs
Sunday, Dec. 20: Victorian Playhouse’s “A Tuna Christmas”
Sunday, Dec. 20: Miners Alley Playhouse’s “It’s a Wonderful Life . . . a 1940s Radio Play” Golden
Sunday, Dec. 20: Aurora Fox’s “Fully Committed” and “A Christmas Story”
Sunday, Dec. 20: openstage etc.’s “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol” Fort Collins
Sunday, Dec. 20: The Avenue’s “What the Dickens”
Sunday, Dec. 20: California Actors Theatre’s “A Carol Christmas II” Longmont
Sunday, Dec. 20: Coal Creek Community Theatre’s “A Tuna Christmas,” at the Mary Miller Theatre Lafayette
Sunday, Dec. 20: Manitou Art Theatre’s “Guffaw Family Christmas Carol” Manitou Springs
Video bonus: ‘Spring Awakening’ cast performs for Colorado State Thespians
Taylor Trensch (Moritz) and Steffi D (Ilse) perform from ‘Spring Awakening’ at the Colorado State Thespians convention Dec. 11, 2009. Video of Q&A highlights with Denver Post theater critic John Moore to follow. Run time: 4 minutes, 30 seconds.
