Save Richmond

It was a sad day in the history of Richmond performing arts when the venerable, 47-year-old TheatreVirginia closed its doors.

TheatreVirginia (which was housed inside the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) began as The Virginia Museum Theatre way back in 1955. Nearly twenty years later, it had joined the League of Resident Theatres (LORT) and established itself as Richmond’s preeminent professional playhouse. In 1984, it split off from the Museum (and state oversight) even though it contained to maintain its home inside the VFMA’s complex.

Over time, as with many worthy arts endeavors that refuse to change with the times, the once-popular organization found itself mired in patronage politics, static formula and artistic conservatism — traits that would earn it a rep as a “country club theatre,” and an institution more concerned with being inoffensive (no David Mamet spoken here, thanks!) than in being relevant.

TheatreVirginia’s eventual flameout in 2002 was one of the most thoroughly reported arts stories of the day — especially in Style Weekly. In the months before, and after, its closing, Style’s arts writers outdid themselves with both news stories and commentary that gave the inside dope on how and why Richmond’s longest-running playhouse went belly up. [Full disclosure: I contribute the occasional feature and back page essay to Style.] The weekly tabloid was also where the arts community and theatre subscribers (new and old) expressed their feelings on TheatreVirginia’s closing in numerous letters to the editor.

As the magazine’s Edwin Slipek Jr. reported in Dec. 2002 feature titled “Left Behind”:

TheatreVirginia wanted it both ways. The board wanted intellectual and institutional freedom without giving up the financial benefits and considerable amenities of the venerable, state-owned museum. So trustees clung to the museum — and benefited. The theater paid only modest rents and utility fees. The Virginia Museum Foundation made financial grants regularly. And few could argue with free surface parking, good security, two restaurants and on-site scenery- and costume- building shops.

But that arrangement would have to change soon. The museum wanted to grow.

In 1999, museum trustee Paul Mellon died. A legendary philanthropist, he had been one of the theater’s biggest backers and had financed the theater’s construction in 1955. Now, the museum no longer feared offending him. Armed with ambitious expansion plans, the museum needed the TheatreVirginia space.

But like a comfortable child who won’t leave home, TheatreVirginia put its head in the sand. Despite searches, no location measured up to the cushy status quo.

“The Virginia Museum should have kicked us out four years ago,” says one volunteer who has ushered for decades at the theater. “We’ve been in denial,” he adds, referring to the eviction notice the theater has had from the museum.

But that wasn’t the only problem. While TheatreVirginia searched for a new home, it became apparent to some that the company had neither a compelling artistic vision nor a board that could shake, rattle and roll with fund-raising. They were behind compared with other groups. The Richmond Ballet had opened a world-class facility; the Richmond Symphony had spearheaded the Carpenter Center; Theater IV had converted the Empire Theater; and the Virginia Opera had broadened its season greatly. Many of our community’s take-no-prisoners go-getters had joined these efforts.

Since the theater’s split from the state in 1984, its board has been peppered with current or former trustees of the art museum (all political appointees). Some of them were stuck in the past, nostalgic for the days before the theater was a professional company. They talked about how wonderful Robert Telford, the founding artistic director, had been. And they assumed TheatreVirginia would be at least partially subsidized in perpetuity. Fund-raising was never a priority; ticket sales would create the cash flow.

But theater, like all performing and visual arts, must be subsidized heavily (this fall, the chairman of the New York’s Guggenheim Museum donated $12 million just to put the museum in the black). And when it came to coming up with the dough, the theater board either didn’t or couldn’t. The reported $500,000 deficit (and that’s probably a low figure) reflects years of ineffective fund-raising.

Every artistic director who came in was set up for failure: edgy outsiders versus the old guard who remembered the good old days. The artistic director was expected to produce shows that would be box-office hits (not necessarily the finest or best theater choice for that season or this community).

The excuse from TheatreVirginia board members was that the theatre closed down because it couldn’t hold on long enough to be one of the anchor tenants in Richmond’s planned Performing Arts Center.

Slipek wasn’t sure about that, and said as much in his piece:

It could trade the bosom of the Virginia Museum for the comfort of the new center. But what would it bring to the table? No cash, a shrinking patron base and no strong tradition of an artistic vision.

And if moving downtown was such a swell idea, why hadn’t TheatreVirginia spearheaded restoration of the National Theater building in collaboration with Historic Richmond Foundation? It could have been a sexy situation with tremendous private and public support. Sure, the historic building had limitations, but a second stage and shops could have been built elsewhere.

But no. Why would TheatreVirginia give up its country club setting for the grit of the northeast corner of Broad and Seventh streets? Never mind that in Norfolk, the Virginia Stage Company seems to be doing quite nicely in its renovated Wells Theater downtown.

Theatergoers and potential patrons have obviously voted no to TheatreVirginia’s lack of vision and institutional wishy-washiness. The befuddled brew of artistry, show-biz and politics, seasoned heavily with old-line Richmond conservatism, should bewitch, bother and bewilder us no more. Other troupes passed it in the fast lane: The Firehouse Theatre Company, the Modlin Center for the Arts, The Triangle Players and Broadway shows at the Carpenter offer theatrical excitement and diversity. There is a rich theater tradition that exists here.

The man in the crossfire at the time of TheatreVirginia’s closing was Benny Sato Ambush, its final artistic director. From the start, Ambush, an African-American, was criticized for presenting more “relevant,” cutting-edge productions than TheatreVirginia’s more established patrons and conservative board of directors were used to. He was also roundly criticized by some for making public pleas that announced the theatre’s dire financial sitation; he earned the ire of some leaders, and the Richmond Free Press, for trying to solicit the city’s black community to come out and support the struggling playhouse in its final days. The horror!

Months before the company’s final production, Style contributor D.L. Hintz wrote about the challenges that Ambush was facing as he attempted to re-tool and re-brand the financially-strapped theatre company. Here is an excerpt from that May 2002 piece, titled “Staging a Revolution”:

When its lease at the Virginia Museum expires in two years, [TheatreVirginia] will need to move to a new facility, a move bound to cost a pretty penny. To try to energize the company to face these challenges, Ambush is promoting a new artistic vision that he hopes will draw a bigger and broader audience into the theater. “I think we had an image that was exclusive, elitist,” says Ambush. “We are making a conscious attempt to tell the community that the doors are open to everybody.”

This inclusive vision involves plays that are more challenging with casts that are more diverse than what has traditionally been seen on the TVa stage. When Ambush, who is African-American, added a production of the “urban” drama “Crumbs from the Table of Joy” to a season that already included the Harlem-based musical “Bubbling Black Sugar,” he faced criticism that he was focusing on “black plays.” Ambush’s response is pointed: “Two out of the six plays we did last season came out of the African-American culture. How sad that people may think that is too many in a city where 58 percent of the population is black. All I’m asking is that people make room at the table for their neighbors.”

The hubbub over Ambush’s artistic vision has tended to obscure the practical business steps he has taken to address the theater’s debt. Many of the changes he made to last year’s season were implemented to reduce costs. He has planned a shorter 2002-03 season of five productions (not the usual six) that will require smaller casts, fewer musicians and less elaborate designs. Overall, the TVa budget for next year includes 18 fewer actor and musician contracts than this year’s.

In his stormy two-year stint with the company, Benny Sato Ambush had inherited a Theatre that was on its last legs, both artistically and financially. Let the record show that he attempted to address all of the key concerns during his brief time with the company. And in a Feb. 2003 profile of Ambush, “Behind the Curtain,” Style’s Carrie Nieman suggested that he had been unfairly set up as the fall guy in TheatreVirginia’s demise:

Ambush arrived with what he believed was a “mandate to change.” His mantra to theatergoers was to take a leap of faith with him “because I took a leap of faith to come here.” But his attempts failed to get much feedback. “[Much] of it was of a supportive nature; I just think that was a missed opportunity for people to engage with me and to participate in the future of the new theater.”

Ambush said he was frustrated by the lack of response he got; his attempts at “community dialogues” failed. “Nobody would speak their mind,” he says. He also says that little of the response was direct, “most of those were in letters and phone messages — the worst, the nasty ones were anonymous.”

Nieman had earlier reported on the effect that TheatreVirginia’s demise would have on the city’s theatre scene. In a Dec. 2002 piece called “The Next Act”, she seemed to conclude that the venerable theatre company might have had a chance if knowledgable local arts authorities with a proven record of success had been in charge of the front office rather than the business community reps who were then manning TVa’s board of directors.

Predictably, the board members didn’t agree with this conclusion. An excerpt:

Richmond’s theater community is talking about a replacement [for TheatreVirginia]. Some eyes are on Bruce Miller and Phil Whiteway.

In the summer of 2001, the Theatre IV co-founders partnered with the Barksdale Theatre to help pull that organization out of debt. In just two years, they successfully reduced the Barksdale’s debt by more than half and today it’s the closest thing Richmond has to a professional theater.

Was the same offer given to TheatreVirginia in its final days? Miller, Theatre IV’s artistic director, declines to say.

“I love that theater,” he says. “Do I wish that we could have played a role in keeping it alive? Sure, but that doesn’t mean that I have anything negative to say about the way [TheatreVirginia's board of directors] handled the situation. I’m supportive of their decision. I don’t know what they faced.”

Theodore W. Price, president of TheatreVirginia’s board, says he doesn’t want to talk about whether Miller offered to come to TheatreVirginia’s aid, but that joining with Theatre IV/Barksdale wouldn’t have been a practical solution anyway. “The problem with combining with Theatre IV is that they have no money either,” he says. “In terms of the space, they really have no space.”

Undoubtedly, one of the largest problems TheatreVirginia was facing was that it had no space of its own. In 1997, the board knew it was going to be kicked out of its rented space in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 2003 to make room for museum expansion plans.

But they had no luck finding a suitable venue despite an exhaustive search, board member Tom Topinka says.

“We could have cobbled together a few shows, but it would not have been anyplace we could have called our home and not of the quality you would have needed to have,” Price says.

After 2003, TheatreVirginia would have been homeless for four years until 2007, when it planned to move into the Virginia Performing Arts Complex downtown. In summer 2002, the board announced that the theater would go dark for the years in the interim. And now after 47 years, the theater will go dark permanently.

Brad Armstrong, president and CEO of the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation, says he isn’t surprised. It was no secret that TheatreVirginia was hurting, he says. And it was no secret the theater was planning to close for a a couple of years at the end of this season.

“Whatever would have come back from TheatreVirginia would have been very different than what it has been,” he says. “We have always known that we were going to go through this phase of re-crafting the professional theater” of Richmond, he says.

For a professional theater to succeed in Richmond, Armstrong says, it must have an appropriate facility (i.e. the Performing Arts Complex) and savvy business leaders (i.e., it can’t be led by artistic vision).

Which brings us back to Miller and Whiteway, whose careful strategic planning — not to mention haggling — dug Barksdale out of trouble.

In the end, employees and theatre insiders blamed the TheatreVirginia board of directors — a group of politically-appointed bigwigs with little or no background in the performing arts — and not Benny Ambush. The community at large pointed fingers too. One longtime patron expressed his frustrations in a Jan. 2003 letter to Style:

Only a month before closing, TheatreVirginia told the subscribers that it would complete the current season and produce a shortened season next year, at the current venue. They urged the subscribers to ignore all the negative rumors and get their friends and relatives to purchase subscriptions. One month later, they announced that not only would there be no productions next season, they were canceling all the remaining shows of this season. And, there would be no refunds.

If the board knew the theater was in imminent danger of collapse (and how could they not know) this comes close to fraud. In my book, that is right up there with Enron, Arthur Anderson and WorldCom.

The disgruntled subscriber’s Enron comparison was apt. One of the TheatreVirginia board members — TVa’s liasion to the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation — was a former Enron associate named Robert Mooney. Longtime Save Richmonders need no introduction to Robert “Bob” Mooney, the current vice-chairman of the Centerstage Foundation and the dude who would go on to (anonymously) draft the revised arts center proposal for Mayor Wilder’s performing arts committee. You know the proposal — the one that sees the city paying out even more money than it would have in the Foundation’s original failed plan, getting less in return and then shielding from taxpayers how the money will be spent. That one.

How is any of that relevant to Richmond’s forthcoming Cultural Action Plan, you ask? If you are an independent arts administrator counting your pennies, you already know the answer: Mr. Mooney’s latest cultural venture will — in its current form — suck up most, if not all, available public arts dollars for the next 99 years!

Score another one for our “savvy” business leaders and their hands-on stewardship of the local arts community.

… and there is a frustrating postscript to the TheatreVirginia story, one that should give area artists and serious patrons a window of insight into how closely our government officials pay attention to the local arts scene. Given the public controversies surrounding the theatre’s demise at the time, and the excellent behind-the-scenes reporting of events, it was a wee bit upsetting — and mighty telling — when, at one of the last mayoral debates before the November election, our future Mayor-elect Dwight Jones thought that TheatreVirginia was still up and running.

Obviously the incoming hizzoner needs to do a little remedial reading. And the rest of us too:

Here is D.L. Hintz’s excellent May 2002 piece on TheatreVirginia’s final season, “Staging a Revolution.”

Read Edwin Slipek Jr.’s perceptive Dec. 2002 article on the company’s board of directors, “Left Behind,” by clicking right here.

Click here to read Carrie Nieman’s post-mortem, “The Next Act,” published in Dec. 2002.

You can take a look at “Behind the Curtain,” Nieman’s 2003 profile of Benny Sato Ambush, right here.

And Save Richmond’s previous installments of the Richmond Arts Flashback can be found here, here and here.

This series of historical reminders seeks to provide some context to Richmond’s forthcoming Cultural Action Plan… because the past is prologue to the future, whether we want to learn from it or not.

Next up: Takin’ it to the streets.