STUDIO ARENA THEATRE

Last week was a week of crisis at Studio Arena Theatre. While rumors flew, very little accurate information was available.

The facts are these:

Despite a plan developed with consultants to reduce operating costs involving complete reorganization, a reduced staff and reduced season, among other measures, debt continues to mount. The reason is that the theater is faced, monthly, with the wall of accounts payable accrued during the previous administration. For that reason, Studio has been unable to promise a 2008-2009 season, which means that they could not launch their annual fundraising appeal. This, coupled with the reduced number of productions this season, the rolled-over debt and the fact that the first two shows of this season did not meet box office projections, resulted in a cash shortfall. A theater with no credit and no cash can’t even advertise.

As a backdrop to this, for months, discussions have been ongoing between Studio Arena and various other entities, among them Artpark and Shea’s Performing Arts Center, as well as M&T Bank and various foundations and donors. While an agreement is by no means imminent, the best bet at the moment appears to be some form of merger between Studio Arena Theatre and Shea’s Performing Arts Center that would involve joint oversight of certain operations, possibly in the areas of ticketing, group sales, marketing or the like.

Shea’s president, Tony Conte, is quite upfront about the prospect. “Many funders are quick to discuss mergers and such, but it is important to remember that Shea’s is not a producing house; we are a presenting house. It may appear that Shea’s and Studio Arena have the same mission, but we do not. We know nothing about producing theater. We present shows that have already been produced elsewhere. And while there may be areas of overlap in terms of operations, this would need to be discussed in detail. Naturally, we do not want to see Studio Arena Theatre disappear; at the same time, it has not been very long since Shea’s was in a serious financial situation. We are not yet out of the woods ourselves, and we cannot do anything that might jeopardize this institution.”

Studio Arena artistic director Kathleen Gaffney has seen models that might work for Buffalo, and cites the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA), home to Denver Center Theatre Company and Denver Center Attractions. Founded in 1979, the Denver Center Theatre Company offers a variety of classic and contemporary drama, including world premieres. The theater received the 1998 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre.

Gaffney puts the matter bluntly: “Doing business as usual is just not going to work any more.”

Previous to Gaffney’s arrival, Studio Arena was operating on a $4.8 million budget and had amassed a sizable deficit. Her proposed model for a $3.5 million operation has not been able to kick in properly in the face of existing debt. While she has cut costs, the theater is still consumed with payments to creditors for old debts. “We owe money to vendors everywhere,” she says, “and it has begun to hurt the community. Before we are through, every creditor must be paid.”

Gaffney specifies, in addition to M&T Bank, that the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation and longtime Studio Arena supporters Joan and Peter Andrews have been “marvelously understanding and helpful.” One wonders, however, if the idea of merging isn’t just the pipe dream of some MBA who is ignorant of the performing arts.

“It is my hope that Shea’s and Studio Arena will work together,” says Gaffney. She describes Tony Conte as “tremendously helpful and tremendously knowledgeable of business.”

“I can see us benefitting from Tony’s expertise,” she continues. “If we share in certain areas and have Tony scrutinize how we operate, this would be a tremendous benefit. I think it would bring confidence to the business community, because he is a highly respected man of business. He has been wonderfully gracious and generous throughout this situation.

“At the same time,” she adds, “we will need to be successful in our union negotiations. All of the unions with whom we work will need to make concessions, and if they do not, we will not make it. Equity [the actors’ union] is the least problematic. If we can operate on a LORT category D contract, that will help us.”

This year, Bat Boy and To Kill a Mockingbird will have been produced on the LORT D contract, designed for smaller theaters and allowing smaller pay scales. The change concerns some, who associate the designation with a grade in school or with a quality standard.

“I am concerned to reduce costs and to eliminate waste everywhere we can,” says Gaffney. “For instance, when I arrived at Studio Arena, after every show, we trashed every set in its entirety. By hiring one designer for the entire season, I hope to reduce that kind of waste. Some people are fearful that this will show on the stage, but frankly, the audience does not see the escape stairs down the back of the set, and nothing is lost by reusing the escape stairs.”

Gaffney also hopes that, eventually, Studio Arena Theatre and Buffalo State College will be able to come to an agreement about a master of fine arts program in acting. The two institutions have a longstanding relationship and many of the most successful LORT theaters are connected to drama schools—Yale Rep and San Diego’s Old Globe among them. The model would allow the theater to reduce costs yet again.

Those who worry about such things might be concerned that Gaffney will get fed up and bolt leaving the solutions to those who created the problem. Her contract is up in April. “The situation is,” she concedes, “hugely different from what I was led to believe when I took the job. These developments have been a shock. But my heart and soul are in Buffalo and at Studio Arena Theatre.”

For now, Gaffney is committed to the completion of the current season and urges all those who would support Studio Arena to come see A.R. Gurney’s Buffalo Christmas play, Indian Blood. Performances begin on December 4.

THE PILLOW MAN

Martin McDonagh is a born storyteller. In plays like The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996) and The Cripple of Inishmaan (1996), he has riveted audiences with tales of macabre intrigue. In The Pillow Man (2003), McDonagh gives his sense of horror and knack for narrative full rein. Here we meet Katurian Katurian, a horror story writer who is picked up by the police because his stories seem eerily similar to actual murders of a succession of local children. His name recalls Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, a man who was, in his own way, obsessed with children, and like Nabokov, McDonagh manipulates with the lies and truths of storytelling. The play has been produced in Buffalo by the New Phoenix Theatre Company with a first-rate cast, ably directed by Robert Waterhouse.

Like such plays as The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001) and The Beauty Queen of Leenane, at times the element of horror makes The Pillow Man both difficult to watch and impossible to look away from. Katurian Katurian, played with unaffected sincerity and innocence by Peter Jaskowiak, has an obsession with children who suffer. We determine that this interest is derived from his own abusive upbringing, during which he heard his parents torture his mentally disabled brother, while they lavished attention on him. Richard Lambert gives an affecting performance as the grown brother who is fascinated by Katurian’s narratives.

We see a number of the bizarre short stories acted out over the course of the evening, in silhouette behind a shadow screen. In these stories, Tanya Shaffer plays the mother, Kevin Cain plays the father and Sasha Shaffer plays the child. These three give haunting, stylized performances, adding to a sense of horror and unreality. The simple but wonderfully effective set has been designed by Franklin LaVoie. Paul Kolowski has composed a truly marvelous score for the production, lending an air of heightened drama, menace and suspense.

The play is set in a police state where torture is legal. Jeffrey Coyle and Gary Marz play Tupolski and Ariel, a good cop/bad cop team charged to extract the truth from Katurian by whatever means necessary. They are perfection in their performances, which make audience members squirm in their seats as the means they employ include beatings, threats and electric shock.

What’s at stake is the obligation of the writer to tell stories, and obligation of ethical human beings to determine the just outcome of life’s real stories. This production explores these murky byways in powerful ways.