The Open Table is just another great event taking place in our Downtown Olympia Theatre District.  Additional information on Olympia Open Table can be obtained at everydayolympia.com.    Stay tuned for October’s Arts Crush information featuring Live Theatre Week and Free Night of Theatre.

Locally Grown Downtown Industry Provides Economic Charge
Provides over $1.6 million in local pay and benefits

There is an important industry in downtown Olympia that in 2009 brought approximately 167,000 customers into the area and operated on a $3.8 million annual operating budget. It is not a financial institution, transportation group, corporate conglomerate or a government agency. During the normal day work hours this operation is “dark” yet on weekend nights this business lights up the town. This industry is our locally grown and operated downtown Olympia theatre district.

The downtown Olympia theatre district is made up of four not-for-profit, subscriber based theatres in the downtown core: Capital Playhouse, Capitol Theater (operated by the Olympia Film Society), State Theater (operated by Harlequin Productions) and the Washington Center for the Performing Arts. Each theatre operates its respective historic venue. The district was established several years ago for marketing and promotion purposes only and while not a formal district of the city it is rapidly being referred to as a distinct place to be.

The cultural and social contributions of this group of theatres are well noted. Each theatre surveyed has a long legacy of respected presentation values coupled with solid community support. This is the second annual measurement of the economic impact of the district. The survey was limited to the major theatres in the downtown core and does not include the smaller yet important performance and club scenes or the fine Olympia Little Theatre on the eastside. The survey covers the respective fiscal year ending 2009 for each venue.

Each of these theatres presents an extensive and diverse schedule of live productions and other events. Capital Playhouse and Harlequin Productions produce and direct their shows bringing in local and regional actors, creating sets and performing each production typically over a four week or longer period. The Washington Center for the Performing Arts books national touring productions into its facility and provides space for local performing organizations (e.g. The Olympia Symphony) with most of the performances being for one night only. The Capitol Theater, home of the Olympia Film Society, shows hundreds of film screenings a year and also books live music performances.

The survey shows the importance of the theatre district on the economy for downtown Olympia. This past year over 500 live performances attracted the 167,000 patrons into downtown Olympia mostly during evenings and Sunday afternoons. This significant audience coming downtown extends a positive vitality and level of commerce after normal business hours.

To run these theatres there are a collective 27 full time employees, 110 part time employees and over 670 volunteers most of whom are also working after normal business hours. Many of the patrons, employees and volunteers also partake in the area’s restaurants, coffee shops and clubs on theatre nights.

The combined operating budgets of the four theatres are $3.8 million. Approximately $1.7 million of the local expense is for personnel costs and benefits. The remainder of the local costs goes for professional services, printing, advertising, insurance, utilities, equipment, supplies, and depreciation. Some expenses go outside the area for booking fees, production rights, and regional actors.

To generate revenue these theatres rely on a mix of subscription and walk-in ticket sales along with donations from supporters and grants awards. On average 52% of the theatre district revenue comes from ticket sales. About 40% of those ticket sales come from season subscribers and 60% from one time sales. Donations from loyal patrons and local businesses, sales of program advertising, show sponsors, annual fund raisers, municipal support and grants (e.g. “Pay What You Can Night”) make up the difference and help keep the ticket prices relatively affordable. It needs to be noted that each theatre has its own unique mix of revenue sources and can vary widely based upon their respective business model.

It has been a challenging two years for these theatres. The significant changes from last year’s survey show that total attendance for the district was down about 8% as a result of the recession and in response operating budgets were cut 5%. There are current bright spots. For example Harlequin (“60’s Chicks”) and Capital Playhouse (“Annie”) have had recent sell-out successes.

The downtown Olympia theatre district continues to be recognized by the community as an important cultural and social resource. The evidence is shown in the decades of steadfast community support through subscribers, business sponsors, volunteers and donations for each of the four venues. National recognition came recently as Kiplinger magazine rated Olympia as the 6th best city in the U.S. due in part to the thriving cultural and arts scene with a reference to the downtown theatre district.

This theatre district survey makes it clear that the district is an important social and economic resource and a solid foundation for a positive, healthy downtown Olympia. This district is a truly unique treasure for the number and variety of venues offering quality performances in a city of Olympia’s size. It will also be the local community that decides the fate of these venues in these difficult economic times.

For more information about each of these theatres please visit their respective websites.

The website Musee Mechanique defines an orchestrion as “A self-contained large automatic musical instrument equipped with several different instruments in imitation of an orchestra. It usually contains some percussion effects (e.g., drums, cymbal, triangle, etc.).” It uses a piano roll to play different tunes.

Pat Metheny has been a stellar jazz guitarist for many years with commercial success and 17 grammys to his credit. Mr. Metheny is also noted for continually being at the forefront of jazz guitar and composition exploration.

Metheny reports from his website (Pat Metheny.com) “This project represents a conceptual direction that merges an idea from the late 19th and early 20th centuries with the technologies of today to create a new, open-ended platform for musical composition, improvisation and performance. “Orchestrionics” is the term that I am using to describe a method of developing ensemble-oriented music using acoustic and acoustoelectric musical instruments that are mechanically controlled in a variety of ways, using solenoids and pneumatics.

At least for me, this takes the term “solo record” into some new and interesting areas, somewhat recontextualizing the idea of what constitutes a solo performance by a single musician. This project is the result of a lifelong dream in this area that dates back to my early youth. “

I have seen Mr. Methany in a number of concerts including the concert on the pier series in Seattle and a very special engagement at Harlequin Productions State Theater about 10 years ago. Each time he has presented jazz guitar and composition in a totally different approach and always hits the ball out of the park.

Although this modern day hurdy gurdy elevation is tricky I expect fireworks. It has been reported that it takes at least three days to set up his custom orchestrion for a performance. The composition and guitar virtuosity should be stellar. The orchestrion sound will be that of which we have never experienced before. This could be one of the most amazing concert experiences not only to be heard but to be seen up close and personal.

Thursday April 29, 2010 at 7:30 PM
The Washington Center for the Performing Arts – Stage I

Dan Weiss is a continuing student of live theatre having served on several boards of local live performance groups and attended over 100 live theatre productions from Olympia to Broadway with Ashland in between. Dan also is founding member and current president of the Arts Alliance of Downtown Olympia which promotes the downtown Olympia theatre district. In this process Dan has learned not to be intimidated by Shakespeare and marvels at the genius of it all.

A New York Art Project Celebrates Records by Candace Jackson, WSJ

In its heyday, Tower Records in Manhattan’s East Village teemed with music-loving shoppers. But in 2006, with buyers rushing to online music stores and big box retailers, the store closed. Starting this weekend, the place will fill up again—this time with performances, panel discussions and conceptual art installations, some lamenting the demise of music stores.

The project, called “Never Can Say Goodbye,” is from No Longer Empty, a New York nonprofit that places public art projects in vacant retail spaces. (The group’s first such exhibit was at an empty fishing-tackle store.)
Ted Riederer

‘Never Records’ is a mock shop set up at a former store in New York.

It’s the latest in a wave of art galleries and theaters popping up in empty retail spaces around the country amid the recession. At a partly-vacant mall in suburban St. Louis, a program called ArtSpace has brought in theaters, art galleries and dance studios to occupy what were once beauty salons and chain stores like Abercrombie & Fitch. In the Los Angeles area, Phantom Galleries LA has placed temporary art installations in vacant shops and storefront windows.

The artists and curators behind the Tower Records project in New York say it’s partly meant as a look at what the art world can learn from the music world’s troubles. To passersby, the site will look a lot like a lively music store, with racks of records, a cash register and promotional posters hung overhead. (Window-sized “For Lease” signs remain, however.)

Ted Riederer and 40 other artists have created the mock “shop,” which will include record albums that have their covers blacked out except for a few words. Visitors flip through the stack to read a poem. It’s a piece that Mr. Riederer calls a “love letter” to the dying concept of a record store. “My goal is … to have them in the store for 30 minutes until they realize it’s not a store,” he says. Tower Records opened in Sacramento, Calif., in 1960, and by 2006 had 89 stores across the U.S.—all gone now, though a Web site still takes orders.

Opening night of the New York exhibition will include an appearance by a Vanilla Ice impersonator. Also participating is Paul Villinski, who says he used to spend Saturday nights in the store picking out $7 New Wave albums. His work is made from his own record collection, sculpted to look like birds.

Write to Candace Jackson at candace.jackson@wsj.com

Now it is time to keep the energy high and look at the next level of arts for our community. That is where Artspace enters into the picture. Artspace is a national not for profit organization with a mission to create, foster, and preserve affordable space for artists and arts organizations. Too many times artists have jump started a run down civic area only to find that after their success of making the area a lively, fun and desirable “place to be”, the rents rocket up and live/work spaces are no longer affordable. Artspace works to remedy this situation and has established a number of live/work spaces for artists across the country including two properties in Seattle and a new property in Everett. Artspace is a natural progression for our local arts and cultural resources.

This initiative to have an Artspace property in Olympia has passed an initial proof of concept stage. In the fall of 2009, an evaluation team from Artspace came to our community to assess all the components needed to be considered for a successful project. In summary we passed the test by showing among other criteria a solid show of support from the community to start working on this project.

The project itself can take 5 to 8 years of fund raising, planning, land acquisition, design, construction, etc. Artspace is able to assist the community raise the funds through a broad array of resources including local, state and federal grants and private contributions. As a start to make this happen, a local group of citizens is in the process of forming a not for profit foundation to take the lead on this initiative and once completed implement the property management program.

AADO has taken the position that this initiative is good for the downtown area economic, social and cultural environment and should be pursued. Generally speaking, Artspace indicates that their formula calls for local government provide about 10% of the funding. For illustration purposes that could mean $1 million for a $10 million total project (our research and planning will determine actual scope and cost of the project). It is known that local governments are facing very difficult budget issues and funding for such a project may not be currently available. However, our position is that if we take this project in manageable phases over a reasonable time frame we can bring a very valuable resource to the downtown core. It means having a definitive plan in place and being ready to move quickly to the next phase when opportunities present themselves. (Note that when an opportunity for funding a regional attraction became available to Olympia several years ago, it seemed the city was caught flat footed and had to scramble to come up with an idea because there was no definitive plan or vision for a city regional attraction).

Currently there does not seem to be any other program in the local vision like Artspace whereby a public/private partnership can establish affordable live/work space at such a cost/benefit ratio. And yes, there are detractors to such an initiative as in why is the live/work space only for artists. There are a number of housing programs, subsidies, grants and tax rebates available to much of the general public. This one focuses on the arts and it is a common fact that when artists move into downtrodden urban areas these areas witness a rebirth and a very positive improvement to the area follows.

For these reasons, AADO strongly supports the Artspace initiative and will be assisting the leadership group in this worthy endeavor.

For more information on Artspace, please visit the national web site: www.artspace.org

# Congress should ensure that health care legislation includes subsidies to help nonprofit employers provide health insurance for their employees. Tax credits for small employers that provide health insurance for employees won’t help tax-exempt organizations.
# Together, nonprofits employ nearly 14 million individuals — almost 10 percent of the U.S. workforce — who are integral to the vital services these organizations provide to communities throughout the nation.
# Individually, the vast majority of nonprofits are small businesses, employing 50 or fewer workers, and like our for-profit counterparts, we generally don’t have access to the range of health insurance choices available to larger businesses.
# Nonprofits are facing rising demands for our services with fewer private contributions and government resources to help meet that demand. Without assistance, most small nonprofits will be forced to cut staff, cut benefits, and cut programs.

Olympia is home to a historic and acclaimed cultural treasure of a number of live performance not-for-profit theatres. These theatres bring to life diverse ideas that entertain, challenge, enlighten and educate. The retention and longevity of these theatres and their respective production companies is a tribute to the greater Olympia community who, through continued attendance (over 182,000 patrons in downtown Olympia in 2008) and solid financial support, have created a meaningful cultural resource.

Recognizing that live theater is a cherished art form within this community; one deserving continued public and private financial and moral support and with the city council and mayor wishing to promote public awareness of and apprecation for Olympia’s live performing theatres have declared the third week of October to be known and celebrated as Live Theatre Week.

The Arts Alliance of Downtown Olympia (“AADO”) thanks the city for its continued support. AADO focuses on marketing and branding of the downtown Olympia theatre district which is comprised of the State Theatre (Harlequin) , Capital Playhouse, Capitol Theatre (Olympia Film Society) and the Washington Center for the Performing Arts. Through collaboration with such groups as the Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater Visitor and Convention Bureau and the Olympia City Parks and Recreation, AADO provides a collective effort to heighten awarenes of the downtown theatre district (such as this proclamation initiative).

AADO appreciates your continued interest and support for the performing arts.