The Good Side of Being Big: Dan Ruth to Direct "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife" for Firehouse

Working collaboratively, Barksdale and Theatre IV have an annual operating budget of about $5 million. To put that in perspective, we’re about the same size as the Richmond Symphony, and about two times bigger than the former TheatreVirginia in its prime. In fact, we’re the largest professional theatre in Virginia history, in terms of both annual audience and annual budget.

The downside of all this is workload. If you don’t count the two weeks a year when we take vacation, we have to raise $30,000 in contributions during each of the remaining 50 weeks. That’s what it takes to raise the $1,500,000 we need each year in order to meet budget.

Equally daunting, we have to sell $70,000 per week in tickets and tour shows in order to reach our earned revenue goal of $3,500,000 per year. Needless to say, it takes a lot of work on the part of a lot of people to meet these goals. For 32 years, my workload has been about 80 hours a week. That's the challenging side of working for a large and successful organization.

But being big is good in that it gives you artistic opportunities. For recent and current productions, we were able to spend what it takes to bring in the likes of Harrison White, Dave Winning and Jay Lustig for The Full Monty, Liz Mamana for The Constant Wife, Kathy Halenda and Amy Prothro for Mame, Drew Perkins for Smoke on the Mountain, and Dan Ruth for Brooklyn Boy.

When we bring these seasoned pros into town, it helps not only Barksdale Theatre and the particular shows in which they appear, it also helps the entire Richmond theatre community. Richmond’s finest theatre artists benefit from having the chance to work and network with talented professionals from outside our community. Nothing stunts artistic growth more than working in a closed environment.

And sometimes, the artists we bring to town are then able to work for other local theatres as well. As one example, Dan Ruth (pictured above with Joe Pabst in Brooklyn Boy) began directing The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife for Firehouse Theatre Project while he was still performing in Brooklyn Boy. Now that Brooklyn's over and Allergist's Wife rehearsals are in full swing, Dan is still living in the house of Barksdale staff member Bob Albertia, and Barksdale will still be paying for his transportation back to New York, once Allergist’s Wife opens.

It was great to be able to bring Dan back to Richmond this season, and to see his wonderful work again in Brooklyn Boy. It will be equally great to see his directing expertise back in play at Firehouse. Richmond will enjoy two artistic efforts from Dan while only paying once for his housing and transportation expenses. This double-header represents an efficient use of limited community resources, and an excellent example of cooperation among two Richmond theatres. We’re proud to be a part of it.