State of the Arts: Scene seeks to raise national profile

The 2015-16 season at Juanita K. Hammons Hall was a good one. Thank the Wicked Witch of the West.

Keith Boaz, executive director of Hammons Hall and JQH Arena at Missouri State University, said before the hit Broadway musical “Wicked” took the stage for a 16-show run in February, producers had their trepidations about coming to Springfield. They were concerned they’d sell enough tickets to profit on the limited local dates against the expense of transporting 11 semitrailer loads of materials plus paying cast and crew per diems.

“They took a real shot, but we had no concerns,” Boaz said. “The box office validated what we knew all along.”

Boaz said “Wicked” sold 97 percent of available seats, with attendance figures for the run at nearly 35,000. The popular musical represented over half of total ticket sales in the 2015-16 season. The Hammons Hall box office closed the year at 61,000 tickets, grossing $3.7 million in sales, well over four times the revenue in the prior season.

That success, he said, has attracted other producers interested in bringing Broadway musicals to the Springfield market, including the city’s premiere of “The Phantom of the Opera.”

“Springfield is not quite such a small twinkle in the eye of New York anymore – we’re starting to get on the radar,” Boaz said. “The next show should kick the doors wide open.”

Geoff Steele also has been opening doors. As executive director of The Gillioz Center for Arts and Entertainment, Steele is targeting big names and diverse acts for the downtown stage, as well as the O’Reilly Family Events Center at Drury University. From Cheap Trick to Pat Metheny and Lewis Black, he’s building the pedigree one act at a time by researching and reaching out to artist managers. It’s been slow progress, he said, but the ship is turning.

“Probably four to six times in the last year someone has called me, but that’s better than never,” Steele said, declining to disclose figures, but projecting attendance and revenue growth of 8-9 percent this year. “They are talking about us. Unless something catastrophic happens, we’re going to have a record year.”

The work of art
Attendance at the Springfield Art Museum is also on the rise, said Director Nick Nelson. With 52,475 visitors in fiscal 2016 – a 31 percent increase from 40,050 in the year prior – the museum is close to hitting a recent high of 53,694 visitors set in 2014.

“In the past, 5,000 a month used to be a record for us, and that’s been pretty standard lately,” Nelson said, noting a benchmark of 56,000 set in 2004 was spurred by an Ansel Adams photography exhibition.

Raising the museum’s profile among local residents and the national art community are goals Nelson said theater staff and the board of directors outlined in a 2014 strategic plan. He attributes some of the increased attendance to that plan, using more of the museum grounds for unique exhibits, such as the House of Art public art space, and allowing groups including the Actors Theatre of Missouri and 1 Million Cups to use the amphitheater for performances and presentations. Throw in educational programs at rural schools in southern and central Missouri, plus allotting some $17,000 for restoring the iconic “Sun Target II” piece, aka “the French Fries,” and the museum appears to be firing on all cylinders.

However, Nelson knows there’s more to be done.

“What we’re thinking about is closing the gap between operations and what the community expects and deserves, trying to rise to a level of excellence beyond covering the basics, which our budget does,” Nelson said, noting the museum’s $1.3 million budget limits the potential for art acquisitions and program expansions.

A $14,000 federal grant recently awarded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services is one answer to the funding question, Nelson said, alongside organizing fundraisers and driving museum memberships. Additionally, he’d like to become accredited through the American Alliance of Museums – an initial cost of $5,200.

“That builds trust in the community and we can say it’s among a top level of achievement. Out of 17,000 or 18,000 museums, only about 800 are accredited,” Nelson said. “It would be a real feather in our cap.”

Not in the museum’s plan was the April theft of seven Campbell’s Soup Can prints created by Andy Warhol. FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton with the agency’s Kansas City office said the case is still under investigation.

“It’s always on people’s mind; it’s on my mind certainly,” Nelson said, declining to disclose the market value of the collection or the museum’s insurance covering it. “It’s kind of an extraordinary circumstance and we leave it to the FBI and the police to investigate and resolve it.”

Alamo’s arrival
On the movie entertainment side, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has become a savior to what could have been a devastating blow to the entertainment scene.

Wehrenberg Theatres surprised the market when officials announced a sudden plan to close the 20-year-old Campbell 16 Cine.

Business partners Mark Evans and John Martin, a partner and former CEO of the Austin, Texas-based theater chain, swooped in to convert the Wehrenberg property to the Alamo brand. With renovations scheduled for completion in spring, the 14-screen, roughly 55,000-square-foot theater will be the largest among Alamo’s more than 20 cinemas.

“Springfield is a big movie town, and we can see that by the number of theaters,” Martin said, estimating the company’s local investment is in the high seven figures. “We believe we’ll have the entertainment destination – not only movies but the karaoke rooms and the bar and restaurant.”

In addition to replacing 3,000 seats with 1,200 electric recliners – a feature fast becoming an industry standard – Martin said the Alamo theaters would be outfitted with both digital 4K and 35 mm film projectors. The latter is a necessity for netting first-runs of movies by directors like Quentin Tarantino, Martin said, and the theater chain has some pull with Hollywood’s stars.

“The Alamo brand attracts everyone in the filmmaking process, and without fail we have those people make appearances with their films,” Martin said. “It’s anticipated and expected Springfield will enjoy that as well.”