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BY Paul Lane
paul.lane@tonawanda-news.com
There’s nothing a performer likes more than to play before a full house.
The economic climate of the past 18 months or so has made that goal tougher to achieve for those involved with the three Tonawanda-area theater groups. Rather than dissolve into extinction like some of their brethren, however, those involved with these groups are getting creative in an effort to stay relevant.
For Starry Night Theatre Inc. in North Tonawanda, that means leaning upon a couple of unique ladies to continue bringing patrons in for a laugh.
For the Niagara Regional Theater Guild, which operates in the Town of Tonawanda, that involves everything from reusing set pieces and costumes to performing for children early in the morning.
And for the Towne Players, also in the Town of Tonawanda, the fight for survival includes giving tickets away to students and joining the Internet generation rather than trying to beat those people.
Representatives from all three theaters say that their groups are in fairly decent shape despite decreased attendance. According to L. Don Swartz, artistic director for Starry Night, the region’s already-depressed economy meant that local groups have felt less of an impact from the current economic downswing.
“We are tightening our belts like everyone. Living in a depressed area is great practice when a national recession comes along,” he said.
One of the biggest of Buffalo’s 20-plus theaters, Studio Arena, recently announced that efforts to reopen after declaring bankruptcy were being abandoned. So the question begs to be asked: If one of the region’s mainstays can’t survive, can three theater groups maintain existence in the Tonawandas?
Fighting costs
Starry Night, founded in 1972 as the Ghostlight Theatre Company and given it current moniker in 2001, operates out of the Ghostlight Theatre, a former Methodist church on Schenck Street that the group acquired in 2001. That means the group has no rental obligations, but has to foot its own utility and upkeep bills.
The other two groups have turned to alliances to maintain their homes. The Towne Players worked out an agreement with the town’s Youth, Parks and Recreation Department in March 2006 that grants the group rent-free stage and storage space at the Sheridan Parkside Community Center on Sheridan Parkside Drive. In exchange, according to Players president Glenn Jumper, the group provides theater lessons.
“The town provides the site and utilities, so we can concentrate on the shows,” he said of the Towne Players, which have been in operation since 1958 and are settled at Sheridan Parkside after spending decades at area elementary schools and churches. “The town has been very, very cooperative with us.”
The Niagara Regional Theater Guild has worked out some cooperation of its own with Cardinal O’Hara High School, said Fran Newton, chairman of the NRTG’s board of directors. The guild is entering the second year of an arrangement that allows the NRTG to use the school stage and storage space at a reduced rent. In exchange, guild members offer theater lessons to students.
“We did not get a chance to really fulfill the educational component of our mission statement in our other facilities,” he said of the NRTG, which has been in existence since 1923 and changed its name from Niagara Falls Little Theatre in 2004.
The guild has additionally slashed costs of late by reusing set pieces, props and costumes, Newton said. The group has also re-evaluated how it spends its advertising dollars to ensure that enough funds are available for the on-stage product.
“We need to make sure every major expense we have is worth it,” he said. “It’s really a different choice to make to economize when you’re working with people who are trying to create something. Every dollar you economize from the product is taking away from the vision (the director and crew) want on stage ... we realize that it may not fulfill the director’s ultimate vision, but at the end of the season, you have to be able to stay standing.”
To maintain a similar upright position, the Towne Players are looking at social networking Web sites to increase visibility, Jumper said.
“There’s a lot more distractions, especially for younger people, so we have to go get them,” he said.
While every cost needs to be scrutinized these days, Swartz said the nature of local theater is such that the adjustment is not drastic.
“Maintaining a non-profit group is an everyday struggle, and you get used to it,” he said. “Community theaters are the Kmart of entertainment, and when money gets tight we are still affordable.”
Increasing revenue
Starry Night will offer five original productions and/or adaptations among its six-show season in 2009-10, bucking the trend locally and nationwide of giving audiences familiar productions. The Towne Players will offer only one original work — “The Great Towne Players Murder Mystery” in the fall — while offering familiar fare such as “Alice in Wonderland” and “Barefoot in the Park.” The NRTG, meanwhile, will focus on well-known musicals such as “Anything Goes” and “Man of La Mancha,” while also staging the play “The Diary of Anne Frank.”
“This year might be another year where attendance is going to be iffy because of the economy, so if people are looking through the paper, they might gravitate toward the bigger shows they know that catch their eye,” Newton said. “We know these are shows they appreciate and enjoy.”
Swartz disagrees. He said the attendance at his theater has dropped less than at his peers’ halls, and he cites original material such as the “Lottie & Bernice” series he penned as one of the reasons. The two ladies will be at the forefront again in 2009-10 in “Lottie & Bernice in Get Off My Cabbage,” with their appearances remaining among the theater’s top draws, he said.
“ ‘The Lottie & Bernice Show’ is our No. 1 box office champ,” he said, saying that “The Lottie & Bernice Show” sold more than 1,600 tickets in 2007-08. “We do at least one world premiere a season, and they are the most well-attended shows.”
Doug Smith, Tonawanda News commentator and reviewer of/participant in local theater since 1969, said hosting large productions has advantages.
“I haven’t noticed anybody much altering their programming,” he said. “Ideally, you get a big old play, cast it with 25 people, and even if the talent level gets thin below the principal players, you get all their friends and relatives (to attend).”
The Towne Players’ production this past season of “The Glass Menagerie,” by contrast, only had four cast members, Jumper said, with three of them being related. “Menagerie” was the group’s only show last season to be in the red, he said, albeit by a small amount.
No production can rely solely upon the support of loved ones, though. That especially held true with the NRTG, which Newton said typically hosted between 125 and 200 people per night in 2008-09.
“As the economy goes south, the money they have to spend on entertainment dwindles, and unfortunately theater is one of the first things that goes,” he said. “We never had a night that was extremely large, and we usually have a couple nights per run with over 250 people in crowd. We never had any nights where the cast members outnumbered the audience, but we didn’t have any nights either at the top end of what we expect to draw.”
Ticket prices have also been addressed. Starry Night has kept its admittance price level, which Swartz said has helped.
“We have not raised our prices again this year, a gamble that I think is paying off, as our subscription base is growing,” said Swartz, who said each of last season’s shows averaged about 1,000 audience members per run.
The NRTG is experimenting with online ticketing, Newton said. The group is also looking to offer discounted presale tickets, as well as tender tickets at a lower price to children.
None of the local groups reported having to dip into reserve funds to make it through this past season. The Towne Players are looking into grants to help fund future seasons, Jumper said, while Newton said the guild is afloat thanks to numerous fundraisers, each of which last season met or surpassed their stated monetary goal.
“Even if we end the year in the red, we’re not in a crisis situation,” Newton said.
In with the new
The fact that Western New York’s population is aging is no secret. What is a secret, however, is to get those youngsters who remain in the area involved in local pursuits such as theater.
According to Smith, it could help to get youths involved early.
“The remarkable thing is that up to about age 12, almost all kids love plays — going to them, but most of all performing in them. That’s not universal, but the percentage is very high,” he said. “Then, about (age) 12, they move on to other interests, most of them electronic. We now keep about 20 percent of them, the kind of kids you see in ‘High School Musical.’
“After that, except for the very small percentage who think they’re going to make it professionally, everybody else turns away. We just don’t have a strong base of folks, say, aged 25-50, who are hot to see the next play.”
Starry Night hosts acting classes that, aside from the revenue they generate, help attract a younger set of potential theater lovers. The Towne Players offer a similar program for town students; the drama class proved so popular this past season, Jumper said, that it turned into a club that ran throughout the entire academic year.
The NRTG’s affiliation with O’Hara calls for the guild to teach students there, which Newton said gets youngsters involved. The group further expands its reach to youths by offering numerous school time performances (9:30 a.m.) for at least one show per season, with each of three school time shows last season selling out, Newton said.
While the NRTG offers discounted student tickets, the Towne Players go one additional step.
“When we do something we think is going to attract a student population, we’ll give some tickets away to some of the junior high schools and senior high schools,” Jumper said. “It’s worth a try, anyway.”
Starry Night’s Web site features user reviews and stories about performances and players, and the NRTG wants to offer similar user forums on the Internet sites it hopes to create for each performance.
Looking ahead
So ultimately, is there room for all three groups keep going? Those people who are involved seem optimistic.
“The Ghostlight and Towne Players do a lot of things that we’re not doing,” said Newton, who cited his group’s propensity for classic musicals, the Ghostlight’s preference for original fare and the mix of musicals and plays provided by the Towne Players.
“We’re sort of geographically in a pretty decent place. We’re close enough to Buffalo to draw people from the south, and we’re close enough to Niagara Falls and Lockport to draw people from those places.”
Knowing the audience, Swartz said, is key.
“We try and program something for everyone, and we aim to produce shows that the whole family can see together,” he said. “We are a success story because of the community in which we live.”
All three groups boast an expansive cast of volunteers who do it for nothing more than the enjoyment of being on stage. Appealing to people’s showy sides, Smith said, is necessary to attract them to such groups.
“The key to survival is identifying those people in whom the one-time youthful enthusiasm is still flickering and making them feel useful and wanted,” he said.
Even though these groups have to continually pinch pennies and plot their survival, Jumper said the work is worth any headache it might bring on.
“It’s the love of theater. I still love doing it,” said Jumper, a 30-year veteran of the Towne Players. “It’s a lot of work, but it can be creative, it can be fun and it can be very satisfying.”
Contact Paul Laneat 693-1000, ext. 116.
IT’S SHOWTIME
Following are the 2009-10 lineups for the three Tonawanda-area theater groups.
Niagara Regional Theatre Guild
On the Web at niagaratheatre.com
• “Man of La Mancha,” Sept. 25-Oct. 10
• “The Diary of Anne Frank,” Nov. 13-28
• “Broadway in Concert 9,” Jan. 22-24 (special event)
• “Love Letters,” Feb. 5-13 (special event)
• “Children of Eden,” Feb. 26-March 13
• “Anything Goes,” May 7-22
Starry Night Theatre Inc.
On the Web at starrynighttheatre.com
• “Pippin,” July 30-Aug. 16 (completion of 2008-09 season)
• “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Oct. 1-18
• “All Through the Night,” Dec. 3-20
• “Nosferatu: The Legend of Dracula,” Feb. 11-28
• “Lottie & Bernice in Get Off My Cabbage,” April 29-May 16
• “The Sound of Music,” July 29-Aug. 15, 2010
Towne Players
On the Web at towneplayers.com
• “The Great Towne Players Murder Mystery,” Oct. 9-10
• “Alice in Wonderland,” Dec. 4-13
• “The Desperate Hours,” Feb. 26-March 7
• “Barefoot in the Park,” June 4-12
