Subscriptions Growing at Hanover Tavern

Posted by Bruce Miller

In the midst of an avalanche of challenges (snow cancellations, threats to the Virginia Commission for the Arts), there is some GREAT news coming from Hanover Tavern. Bucking all trends, local and national, subscription sales are UP by 10.5%!

First Baptist of Ivy Gap is doing exactly what we hoped it would. It’s selling well and sending happy and heart-warmed Hanover audiences into the cold night air feeling uplifted. We’ve just extended the previously announced six-week run by two more weeks. Many thanks to our extraordinary actresses--Ali, Harriett, Jan, Joy, Maggie, Sarah and Audra (Audra is filling in this week while Sarah is auditioning at SETC) for making this show such a crowd-pleasing hit.

Thanks also to Chase (stage manager), Jeannie (house manager), Terrie and David (set design), Sue and Marcia (costume design), and Slade (light design) for their fine work transporting us to a Tennessee church hall in 1945 and 1970. And major kudos to Ted Soto, Barksdale's Board of Trustees leader extraordinaire. It was Ted who first saw Ivy Gap at Cumberland County Playhouse and brought the play to my attention.

Ivy Gap is helping to define our Country Playhouse Season at Hanover Tavern as the type of pops series that provides a warm haven for those seeking easy-going, well produced, graciously performed, unabashedly pleasant comedies and musicals.

There are those who consider shows like Ivy Gap to be “popular,” and mean the word “popular” to be pejorative. At Hanover Tavern, we’re embracing the “popular.” Seriously, what else are “pops” series all about?

We’re doing our best to entertain and delight audiences at all our venues. We want the great plays in our Signature Season at Willow Lawn to be entertaining, and we work hard to make the entertainments at Hanover Tavern artistically rewarding. But in an attempt to draw a distinction, we program Hanover Tavern to appeal to those who love theatre that reaffirms rather than challenges, that cares more about being lighthearted than serious.

All told, Barksdale and Theatre IV have about 3,000 subscribers at Willow Lawn, 2,000 subscribers at the Family Playhouse, and 1,000 subscribers at Hanover Tavern, equaling six thousand subscribers total. Last season, Hanover subscriptions dropped to 953 subscribers, comprised of 839 renewals, 85 new subscribers, and the return of 29 former subscribers who had lapsed in previous years.

This year (and we won’t complete our subscription campaign until the close of Ivy Gap on March 28) we have 1,053 subscribers at the Tavern thus far, comprised of 900 renewals, 106 new subscribers, and the return of 47 former subscribers who had previously lapsed.

We couldn’t feel more satisfied and grateful. To our loyal supporters, THANK YOU! As we begin our five year plan to grow total subscriptions to the 8,000 level, we’ll do our best to continue to earn your vote of confidence.

--Bruce Miller

What's "News" at Hanover Tavern?

Posted by Bruce Miller
All of us at Barksdale Theatre are proud to be lighting the fuse of our 5th Anniversary Season back at Hanover Tavern--our 57th Anniversary Season if you overlook the ten years we were away!

I know this sounds cliché, but how can it be possible that we've completed four full seasons since returning to our ancestral stomping grounds? It seems like only yesterday that Phil and I were sitting with Pete Kilgore, sharing the tremendous pride and joy he felt from knowing that his theatre was returning, finally, to his HOME.

It was with Pete's blessing, and the strong support of the leaders of the Hanover Tavern Foundation, that we decided during our negotiations of 2005 to position Barksdale's work at Hanover Tavern as a Country Playhouse Season--the equivalent of the purposefully commercial Pops Series offered by symphony orchestras nationwide.

There were (and there still are) three good reasons why we chose to pursue this business plan.

1 We believe it would be foolhardy to compete with ourselves. We think each of our two seasons needs to have its own artistic identity and attract its own audience. In our Signature Season at Willow Lawn, we focus on theatre as an art form. In our Country Playhouse Season at Hanover Tavern, we focus on theatre as entertainment.

Of course there is overlap. We work hard to make everything at Willow Lawn entertaining and everything at the Tavern artistic. Our experience tells us there are large numbers of Greater Richmond theatre patrons who actively avoid the likes of Boleros for the Disenchanted, The Clean House, James Joyce's The Dead and Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, while enthusiastically embracing Barefoot in the Park, Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, Butterflies are Free, and their seventh visit to Nunsense.

And vice versa.

Barksdale is a big tent theatre. We want everyone to feel welcome and at home. We offer two different experiences on our two different stages because we want to appeal to the broadest possible base of theatregoers. One day, if we can find the time and money, and if we believe it will do no harm to our colleague organizations, we may re-institute Theatre Gym as a third season for a third type of audience member.

2 The second major reason to have a Pops Series is to create an entryway for new audiences. With Nunsense, a musical comedy with very broad appeal, we hope to attract and earn the trust of new ticket buyers who may have such a good time that they choose to return to see another Barksdale production with a lesser known title, or perhaps one that challenges their existing sensibilities. Part of our nonprofit mission--part of every nonprofit theatre's mission--is to educate the community about the art form. You can't educate anyone until you first get them in the door.

3 A third reason to want to attract a broad-based rather than a niche audience is to increase the attractiveness of sponsorship opportunities. Sponsorships are part of the life blood of every large professional nonprofit theatre in the nation. When seeking sponsorships, it's all about market share.

No performing arts organization in town--no other theatre including the "Broadway" series at CenterStage--comes close to Barksdale and Theatre IV in terms of market share and audience diversity. If a corporation wants to support the arts and get its good name out there to a large and discerning audience, they won't find better sponsorship opportunities than the ones offered by the boisterous bunch at Barksdale.

We know there are good people out there who question the business assumptions that inform our programming at Hanover Tavern. There are arts aficionados who prefer niche theatres that focus on one type of programming and/or one segment of the audience. There are arts advocates who would prefer that seriously-intentioned theatres not produce commercial work from Nunsense to Neil Simon, that symphony orchestras with aspirations of greatness not dedicate programs to The Hollywood Hits of John Williams, that ballet companies that seek artistic excellence not feel compelled to remount annual productions of The Nutcracker.

I certainly understand and respect their opinions. However, I believe that in markets the size of Richmond, artistic integrity is job number one, and keeping sufficient cash in the coin purse is job number one too.

After the closing of TheatreVirginia, Barksdale assumed the responsibility to develop and sustain the professional infrastructure (staff, freelance artists, facilities, equipment, production stock) that is required to support not only our theatre but also Greater Richmond's professionally-oriented theatre community at large. With such a heavy commitment on the expense side, financial health cannot be taken for granted.

Maintaining market share is vital for a major professional theatre, particularly when national competition enters the community determined to take it by storm. All of us can name five or six or more beloved businesses that once seemed to be invincible Richmond landmarks. Ultimately, these great businesses faced increasing national competition, lost significant market share, and suffered the dire consequences that inevitably followed.

At Barksdale and Theatre IV, we're working our hardest (and smartest) to continue to make our companies invaluable assets to the Greater Richmond community. We appreciate your support. We believe having a major theatre in Central Virginia that can sustain a professional infrastructure is essential, not just for us, but also for every theatre in town and the community in general.

So what exactly are we offering on the 2010 Country Playhouse Season? Five shows that I LOVE! I'm very excited about this year's lineup. You can find it on our website: http://www.barksdalerichmond.org/. Or you can wait a day or two and I'll outline our upcoming Tavern shows here on the Barksdale blog.

Hope you'll consider subscribing to our wonderful Country Playhouse Season at Hanover Tavern and our inviting Signature Season at Willow Lawn. We need and cherish every subscriber we can get.

After all, subscribing is the best way to guarantee that ... I'll see you at the theatre!

--Bruce Miller

Where Are They Now - Benny Sato Ambush

Posted by Phil Whiteway

When TheatreVirginia closed its doors unexpectedly in 2002, Barksdale and Theatre IV launched five major initiatives to help Greater Richmond deal with the loss.

We produced TheatreVirginia’s cancelled production of The Laramie Project, fulfilling seven actor, director and designer contracts that had been promised to some of Greater Richmond's most talented theatre artists. We brought six of TheatreVirginia’s full time employees onto our staff, allowing them to stay in Richmond and remain employed. We honored, at no additional cost to ROSMY, a fundraiser for which ROSMY had purchased and paid for 500 tickets from TheatreVirginia and received nothing when the theatre closed. We purchased the remnants of the TheatreVirginia costume collection for $10,000, ensuring that this Richmond asset stayed in town and in tact. And we honored approximately 5,400 tickets held by TheatreVirginia subscribers for the three shows that were cancelled.

We did all this out of respect – respect for the cherished institution that had meant so much to so many for over four decades; respect for the board leaders, artists, volunteers and audience members who were most directly effected by the closure; and respect for Benny Sato Ambush, the nationally acclaimed director who had come to Richmond to try his mightiest to save TheatreVirginia during its final year-and-a-half.

On July 27, The Washington Post reported that Benny had been named Artistic Director of the African Continuum Theatre Company in D. C. All his friends were thrilled for him. “I’m ready for the adventure,” said Benny. “I’m ready to get busy.”

He was to begin work fulltime last month, replacing company founder Jennifer L. Nelson who left on August 31 after 11 years at the helm. Last week, The Post reported that the African Continuum’s board had decided to postpone its fall and winter shows and present a shortened season in the spring, citing a severe “cash-flow crunch.” The board also decided to delay, perhaps until February, a full-time commitment to Benny, who has been commuting from his home in Winston-Salem to Washington for the last several months.

Quoting from The Washington Post: “’I’m clearing the deck, so to speak, of my prior commitments as a freelancer, directing and teaching,’ Ambush said. ‘But even when out of town, I still work on behalf of the African Continuum Theatre Company.’ Board Chairman Rubie G. Coles said Ambush was working on the company’s spring season ‘and we’re hoping that in the next two or three weeks, we’ll be able to announce what we’re doing,’ an expectation seconded by Ambush.”

Benny is an exemplary theatre professional and will be a great asset to the Mid-Atlantic once he makes the move to D. C. His goals for African Continuum are still taking shape, but he hopes “to build the infrastructure of the theatre, to extend its reach in the region, strengthen its relevance and solidify its essentialness in the theatrical landscape of the District.”

Benny Ambush is the perfect man for the job, and we wish him tremendous success.

--Phil Whiteway

3's a Charm

Posted by Jessica Daugherty

In the Marketing Dept. we are always looking for ways to show you something new and exciting while at the same time crafting a certain look, something that when you see it immediately says Barksdale. It's a trick to do both at once, but we have been spoiled rotten by the terrific artwork of freelance illustrator Robert Meganck for the past two seasons. He gets to know our season, talks with us, reads scripts, and then manages to distill it all down to one evocative image per show that gives you a real sense of what you'll see at the theatre.

Our newly announced 2007 - 2008 Signature Season is no exception. He's brought our titles to life for a third time, and in the capable hands of our excellent graphic designer, Kate Carpenter, our new brochure has become a thing of beauty. But don't take my word for it; see for yourself - Download the full brochure in pdf format. (It'll open in a new window). Or if you'd rather, you can have us mail it out to you the old fashioned way.

More about the illustrator:

Robert Meganck is a freelance illustrator, president of Communication Design, Inc., and a professor of illustration, graphic design and digital imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Robert has received numerous professional awards and been recognized for excellence by such organizations as The Society of Illustrators (N.Y.), The Society of Illustrators Los Angeles, The Art Directors Club of New York, The Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, The American Institute of Graphic Artist, and The Illustrators Club of Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia. His work has been included in a variety of national reviews including Communication Arts Magazine’s Illustration Annuals, American Illustration Annuals, Print Magazine’s Region Design Annuals, and The Society of Illustrators Annuals.

In the past 10 years, Robert’s work has been in a state of transition, moving from graphic design to illustration, from traditional media to digital media. His illustrations appear regularly in the Washington Post, The Washington City Paper, and a variety of magazines.

Born and educated in Detroit, Michigan, he has taught at California State University in Fullerton, at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and now resides with his family in Richmond, Virginia.

• Illustrator: Robert Meganck's website.
• Graphic Designer: Kate Carpenter's website.
• Us: More about our new Signature Season
• Ready to jump in? Get a Passport Subscription! You can also call 804.282.2620 to subscribe.

Jessica Daugherty
Internet Services Mgr.
Marketing Department