The general manager of Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theatre talks about the struggles her industry faces in the wake of a lackluster economy, the role of the theatre as a year-round community resource, and why she thinks the upcoming production of David Mamet’s “Romance” is sure to be a hit.
Last fall, Bay Street Theatre found itself in dire need of financial assistance to continue operating in Sag Harbor. Word on the street is the theatre is once more in financial strife. What is fact and what is fiction?
The fact is that our two most expensive shows are Lanford Wilson’s “Fifth of July” which is on our stage now, and David Mamet’s “Romance.” This is the time we need to sell tickets. Unlike Main Street retail stores, we have only six weeks left to sell our product and after that our chance is over. So that is the issue and those sales will decide if we are back to square one again this fall like we were last year.
To what do you attribute the decline in ticket sales? Does the economic downturn have an impact? Is this a national issue for theatres?
If we could identify that, theatres everywhere would be thriving. The fact of the matter is we as a theatre are not alone. Some people will say it is the plays we pick and some people say we should be doing mainstream musicals. To them, I say I just spoke to the man who runs the Gateway Theatre, which stages “Hairspray” and other mainstream musicals and they are in the same position. I don’t think it’s a content issue. It’s a problem on Broadway – we are seeing it everywhere. I think the economy does play into it. Prior to last year, and many years before that, we did very well. Last year was precipitous and in terms of ticket sales we just have not been doing well. Like I said, if I could answer this question, we would all be happy.
Our artistic directors Sybil [Christopher] and Murphy [Davis] put an enormous amount of time and thought into the selection of shows and the arch of our summer season to ensure there is something for everyone. For example, this year we went with another new play, “Dissonance” and we always want to present new work because it is a part of our mission.
We are also presenting something connected to where we are. Lanford Wilson’s – a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright who calls Sag Harbor his home – “Fifth of July.” It’s am amazing piece of work and one of the larger productions outside of a musical that we have ever done. It has a large cast, the set is extraordinary and while it is a revival it is a play that is relevant today.
For our third show, “Romance,” I just saw the first read through of the play in New York and it is one of the most outrageous, funny pieces I have ever heard. It is Mamet – warning, it is Mamet – and he screws with absolutely everyone. If you can overlook some of the language, it is literally laugh-out-loud hysterical. I was just dying. It features Chris Bauer from “True Blood,” SNL’s Darrell Hammond and Richard Kind, who was at our gala this weekend as the auctioneer. He is so passionate about this place and so outrageously funny as the Judge in this play. If we can get people there at the previews, there will be buzz, and there is no reason we shouldn’t sell this out.
Reviews often play a heavy role in theatre attendance, and locally some of your productions as well as Guild Hall’s “Equus” received glowing reviews. Did it have an impact?
The fact is I don’t know how the box office did for “Equus,” but I would imagine with Alec Baldwin that they did do well. That being said, we got stellar reviews for “Dissonance” and normally, not last year, but normally when we see a review like that we would see an immediate bump in sales and this year that didn’t happen. You never want a bad review, but when good reviews are not getting people through the door you are just unsure of what it is. I do understand that times are tough, and people come out here to go to the beach and experience what the Hamptons has to offer, see friends and basically have a good time, but if we can get people who are out here on the weekends to realize that we do bring top quality Broadway productions to Bay Street – these are Broadway performers, designers and directors – maybe they would see what we have to offer.
The quality is here and I think if they could understand that not only will they see a fabulous show, but also help a local community organization survive it would help. What we offer is beyond what we stage here 12 weeks of the year. The theatre is important to Main Street, between the local employees we have, the amount of money we spend locally on advertising, house rentals, hotel rooms, the local restaurants, the benefits we throw for people in the community because we like being good neighbors. There is so much more that goes into being a true year round institution
It is hard to imagine Sag Harbor without Bay Street Theatre. What is the importance of Bay Street to the local community?
I think that is one of the things I certainly didn’t realize until I started working here. Because we don’t have a community house, or that kind of facility, we receive numerous calls every week during the non summer months and it can be for something as simple as a sick neighbor who someone wants to throw a potluck or gathering for. And of course, our doors are open. We do that for free and we staff it, pay for the electric and pay to keep our doors open. That is part of what being a part of a community is all about. And of course, when a major world disaster happens, like the earthquake in Haiti, and we as a community say, we have to do something, we hosted an event with Dan Bailey and Jay Schneiderman and raised $10,000. It may have not been a local cause, but it was something everyone was calling us about.
We also do a number of things for students on an educational front. We started our Literacy Live program last fall and it was an amazing first time out of the gate. We hope to introduce students who may have never seen a fully stages theatrical production to theatre and we are still getting calls from the teachers and students who saw “Diary of Anne Frank.” This year, we will have “The Miracle Worker.”
When parents call us with a need we try and listen and one of the things we started was our theatre camps during school vacation breaks. Many of our parents are both working parents and not able to get away to go skiing and they are in a panic over what to do with their kids while they are working and we are able to give them a fulfilling educational experience that is also fun. And we are creating an audience for the future, so it all goes full circle.
What is the theatre’s bottom line and where are you now?
We need to sell the seats at our final two shows and for our comedy nights. We budget to sell between 60 and 70 percent of the house and our first show came in about 50 percent of what we needed it to sell. We are looking at the same numbers right now for these two shows we have left – the two remaining weeks of “Fifth of July” and the four-week run of “Romance.” We are down $100,000 on “Dissonance” and that is what it is, so now we need to get the word out. We hope people come and experience something fun and enjoyable, but also recognize how important this is and that we are more than a theatre.
What is the marketing strategy?
One thing we recognize is the economy is tough and there are people who want to come but can’t afford a $55, $60 theatre ticket, so we will be offering two-fers on the day of the show for “Fifth of July” anytime after 2 p.m. if there are seats available. We will also do that for the previews of “Romance,” because I firmly believe when the buzz starts happening around that show people will come running. Of course, we advertise, send email blasts, have an online presence. We are also soliciting help from our volunteers that do so much for us and come running whenever we need additional support. If any your readers get a call from them, be nice to the volunteers. They are doing it for a good cause. My door is always open and I am always available to anyone who has any ideas for us. We are listening.
What is some of the more popular programming in recent years? Have you seen a shift in taste or what the public is looking for in a theatre?
That is really a question for our artistic directors. They pick plays, musicals, comedies, dramas, and they have to be drawn to them and they also understand they are trying to please a wide audience. For the first summer this year, we don’t have a musical on our main stage. We picked the Mamet piece for the last play because his is certainly a name many people adore and we hope that will be a draw … One of the things that is important to us, even during this last year is maintaining not only the quality of work we produce, but the level of production we produce. We are so grateful to our board of directors who have felt the same way we have. If you cut back, it is proven over time you will slowly lose your audience. So these productions we are putting on are expensive, they are professional actors, professional directors and designers. The sound, the lighting – all these things we would not cut back on because we want to deliver a top of the line production. What we will do for next year if we can’t make our budget is really in the hands of our board of directors. My job is to fill seats now, so we don’t have to get to that point.
Bay Street Theatre is on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor. For information call 725-9500 or visit www.baystreet.org.
