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Sunday, February 08, 2009

By Carl Hoover

Tribune-Herald entertainment editor

After last month’s postponement of “Tuna Does Vegas” for the second time, Waco Hippodrome Theatre officials are consoling themselves with this thought: Four years ago, such news could have been fatal for the historic performing arts venue.

A fall dotted with show cancellations, slowing ticket sales and spotty turnouts followed by a second rescheduling of “Tuna Does Vegas” has dealt a body punch to the Hippodrome’s 2008-09 operating budget. But Waco Performing Arts Company executive director Scott Baker says there’s no thought of the theater shutting its doors.

“Nobody is questioning the future of the Waco Performing Arts Company,” he said, referring to the organization that manages the Hippodrome.

The postponement of five “Tuna Does Vegas” shows last month due to damage to the company’s costumes has cost the Hippodrome needed revenue, and theater officials are seriously contemplating getting a loan to cover a cash flow shortage until midspring, when the theater will field several major shows in a short period of time — including the new dates of “Tuna Does Vegas,” April 17-19.

Baker was recently encouraged that about 500 people turned out for the Feb. 3 performance of “Cirque le Masque,” a number smaller than the audience he anticipated last year when planning the season but larger than he expected given recent months of dire economic news.

“We are showing some signs of rebound,” he said.

March through May will be busy with eight major stage productions and two fundraisers, but getting to that point through a quiet February will be challenging.

WPAC Board President Hap Nielsen said, however, that changes in the theater’s operation, marketing and budgeting have strengthened the theater’s financial condition since a spring 2005 crisis that pushed the 95-year-old facility to the brink of closing and led to an emergency appeal to the community for donations.

Paying off debt, expansion of audiences through diverse programming and inventive marketing, streamlined office management and additional revenue streams, such as film programs enabled by the theater’s new high-definition video projector, have added up to sounder financial footing for the Hippodrome, Nielsen said.

“I credit Scott and I credit his staff for thinking of ways of doing things better,” he said.

Baker came to the theater in the summer of 2005 on a part-time basis, then the board moved him to full time several months later. The WPAC budget has grown in that time from $220,000 to roughly $400,000. Season tickets also have increased under Baker’s watch, from 220 in the 2005-06 season to approximately 700 this year.

Online ticketing, which Baker helped implement, now accounts for roughly one-third of the Hippodrome’s ticket sales.

The executive director plans to leave his position in June and said he regrets not being able to pay off its debt entirely before leaving, having closed to within $30,000 this season.

For Brian Bivona, who left the WPAC board last November after 16 years, the biggest change since the 2005 emergency was paying off about $200,000 in accumulated debt that had rolled over year to year.

Having reduced that debt, in fact, will help the Hippodrome secure any short-term loans needed to cope with the theater’s current cash-flow problem, Baker said.

Any performing-arts venue or organization has to deal with events beyond its control, and the Hippodrome’s rocky fall brought nods of sympathy from Wes Allison, president of the Heart O’ Texas Fair and Rodeo, and Waco Symphony Orchestra executive director Susan Taylor. Both said their organizations try to minimize the effects of the unexpected on their schedules and budgets, but no system of safeguards is perfect.

Allison said cancellation and weather insurance on concerts the Coliseum sponsors helps minimize unexpected losses, as do deposits required from those renting HOT Complex facilities for events. A reserve fund provides emergency backup if something should strike the annual HOT Fair and Rodeo, the organization’s primary moneymaker, and officials are careful not to overextend their sponsored events.

The logistics of organizing some 80 symphony musicians and a busy Waco Hall schedule makes rescheduling a canceled Waco Symphony Orchestra concert a headache, so officials would seek a substitute as the first option, should a guest artist cancel, Taylor said.

Few performers in the WSO’s history have canceled a concert date, she noted, but should that happen, the talent agency backing the performer can suggest a replacement or contacts in the symphony world can lead the WSO to an alternate, Taylor said.

The WSO also can draw from Baylor University’s School of Music faculty for a talented soloist, she added.

Bad luck piles on

Before a run of bad luck struck, the Hippodrome’s 2008-09 season looked promising last fall, with season tickets selling briskly this summer.

A five-performance run of “Tuna Does Vegas,” the latest Texas-flavored comedy from Austin actors Jaston Williams and Joe Sears, was to kick off the theater year in September, but the Austin company postponed that run after Hurricane Gustav canceled other tour dates in the Gulf area.

That postponement, coupled with a widening national recession, tipped off a chain of falling financial dominoes for the theater. While the theater was able to reschedule most of its sold “Tuna” tickets, the missing shows removed a marketing platform Baker had depended upon: some 2,000 “Tuna” and theater fans spread over five performances.

That loss of audience exposure and the chill of a falling economy caused a season ticket drive to fall short of its 800-ticket goal and shortfalls in audience turnout for “The Pajama Game,” “Seussical,” “Defending the Caveman,” “Sweeney Todd” and “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” Baker said, the latter three shows being the type of edgy or different programming that a “Tuna” audience would support.

The dance show “Tapestry” canceled because of poor sales. The theater added a second performance of “Oliver!” to help its touring company in a financial bind, but the extra show meant extra marketing expenses.

“The Three Redneck Tenors’ Spec-tac-yule-ar” proved the fall’s first true success, and Baker hoped a January run of “Tuna Does Vegas” would inject cash into the theater’s spring season — needed after an earlier decision to cancel a February Mardi Gras fundraiser — as well as help sell tickets for spring shows.

Then came January’s distressing news: An accident had damaged the company’s costumes, and “Tuna” would have to be postponed a second time.

Baker acknowledged that the next few months will be a challenge but was optimistic about the theater’s future.

“It’s tough. It’s tight, but the doors are open and shows are going on,” he said.

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