Arts District
Making them pay
Local groups worry about increased costs tied to Overture.
By Jay Rath. Reprinted from Isthmus 7/6/00 by permission of the author.
No one disputes that Jerry Frautschi's $100 million gift for a Madison arts district is a boon to local arts groups. But the boon will come at a price. The Overture's Foundation's recently released financial plan calls for a host of fee hikes that some local arts groups are worried will add up to a big hit to their already strapped budgets. For instance, rents for groups using the various venues&emdash;including the Isthmus Playhouse, the scaled down Oscar Mayer and a planned new 2,250-seat performance hall&emdash;will definitely increase.Some local performance groups feel angry and betrayed, seeing this as an attempt to balance the Overture Foundation's budget on the backs of local arts groups. "If it means that this wad of money dumped into town is just going to increase our costs," says one local arts leader, "take it back." Officials at the Overture Foundation say it's too early to put a dollar figure on upcoming rent increases. But Overture projects that overall rental income derived from local groups will increase from $628,000 in the year 2000 to more than $1 million by 2006.
That's just rent. There are many other costs associated with using the Civic Center and, in the future, with what is being called Overture Center. These include: rental of Civic Center equipment, stagehand and box office labor and ticket printing. Additionally, local groups in two years will face a $1 per ticket surcharge, on top of the 4.5% of gross revenues returned to the house. Right now the surcharge, which the Common Council increased from 50 cents last month, is assessed only to national touring groups. These increases devolve from the financial plan, which calls for leveraging Jerome Frautschi's gift of $100 million to borrow another $100 million. This will free up money--no one yet knows how much--to create an endowment for the operation of the Arts District and cap the city of Madison's contribution to the Civic Center at its current level of $1.29 million, adjusted for inflation. Any money that remains, says Overture president George Austin, will be used to create an endowment for "the cultural arts activities of local arts organizations."
In announcing the financial plan on June 8, Overture advisor Andrew Taylor cited a national survey showing that venue rentals only account for 3% to 7% of average arts groups' annual budgets. But that simply isn't true for arts groups in Madison.
Here, the only professional performance company is the Madison Repertory Theatre, and 10% of its budget goes to venue rentals. All the other groups are amateur or semi-pro, and they depend heavily on volunteer labor- when they can.
The Overture Arts District, like the Civic Center, will be a union house, with union stagehands who receive union wages (though Civic Center director Bob D'Angelo says it may be possible for the Oscar Mayer Theatre to go non-union for local groups). Almost every other venue in Madison is less expensive, but presenter budgets are a lot smaller than Overture thinks, especially among second-tier companies. For many, rental fees constitute the top expense.
For instance, the Madison Theater Guild, now at the Esquire Theater, spends 30% to 50% of its annual budget on rent. Until it moved into the Esquire, Millenium Theater paid 90% of its annual budget to venue rentals.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the critically acclaimed Oakwood Chamber Players does indeed have a small venue rental budget. In fact, it's zero: The group performs only at free venues.
Given the costs involved, it's likely that local groups who do not already work in the Civic Center will not have a chance to work regularly, if ever, in the new Arts District. (D'Angelo, for his part, suggests some of these groups may make use of the facility's smaller rooms, similar to the current Marquee Room.)
Rentals are still huge for local groups with more robust budgets. The Wisconsin Dance Ensemble's artistic director, W. Earle Smith, isn't yet prepared to comment on the Overture Financial Plan. But Jo Jean Retrum, who was artistic director of the company until last year, says venue rental for the group amounts to 50% of its budget.
And Ann Stanke, general director of the Madison Opera, makes a point that underscores how seriously expenses like rent can affect an arts group's bottom line. The opera's recent production of "Carmen" cost $206,000, and ticket sales brought in only $103,000. The rest comes from grants and cash contributions.
At the Madison Symphony, executive director Richard Mackie Jr. says venue rental is just 3% of the Symphony budget, or 6% including stagehand cost. Mackie wants to talk to his board before reacting to Overture's Financial Plan, but he does say, "It is illogical to assume the rents will [have to] go up. After Bob D'Angelo's assurance that it's cheaper to produce in a new facility, I would think my production costs would go down."
CTM Madison Family Theater was the first company to go public with its concerns about how the Overture project might affect it (Isthmus 6/2/00). More worries were aired at the June 8 meeting attended by Overture advisor Taylor, assistant director of the UW-Madison's arts administration program at the School of Business.
Told by CTM board member Paul Soglin that the increased rent would either destroy the company or change its mission, Taylor essentially called the former mayor a liar--after Soglin left the room. Rent wouldn't be a problem for CTM, Taylor said, "even if you doubled it. Not that we're going to double it."
Taylor also claimed that increases will have a good effect. We'll merely be raising the bar for local groups, challenging them, "so that in the future these groups are going to do more performances or selling more tickets." Besides rent, a big challenge for local groups using the Civic Center is having to stop a show so that another local company or a one-night road show can come in. The cost of taking down a set and then putting it up again is billed to the local groups. "All of that is very disruptive and very expensive," says David Hackworthy, president of the Madison Rep's board of directors.
Road shows are villains to many local arts groups, not only because they interrupt schedules but because they are viewed as artistically shallow and, worse, not among the intended recipients of the Frautschi gift. Yet it's clear from the Overture Financial Plan that, in the future, road shows will be more important than ever. National touring companies, which this year are expected to bring in $1.5 million for the Civic Center, will by 2008 be expected to earn the Arts District facility $2.6 million, and the shows will not only be using the large new performance hall, but the Oscar Mayer as well.
Ironically, while these profitable roadshows help improve the facility's bottom line, they may not be the best for the city overall. Says Mackie, "It's the local organizations that keep their budgets mostly in the community&emdash;85% to 87%--and when a road show comes through town there's a big sucking sound."