SAN ANTONIO — At the start of the summer, Jimmy Moore was preparing for another season where the Classic Theatre would bounce from location to location for each new production. That's been the norm for them since COVID, and it's seen actors performing everywhere from the San Antonio Botanical Garden to the Carver Community Cultural Center.
By the end of June, Moore and his team had a new home—and, suddenly, a mountain of things to do.
“We like to say that we’ve done a year and a half’s worth of work in six weeks," the Classic's artistic director said. "There’s so much more to do, and so much more that we want to do.”
In the months since, Moore has been busy planning for not one but two season programs: One for the Classic, and one for the historic Public Theater of San Antonio, which joined forces with Moore's team to consolidate resources, creative energy and, potentially, their respective futures.
The coming months will serve as a trial run to see if the two local theater organizations – both operating, for now, out of the San Pedro Playhouse – could ultimately become one.
Or, as Moore puts it: The two companies are "dating," getting to know each other and seeing what it would take for temporary relations to become a longer-lasting union.
“We’re working very closely as if we were one company, even though we aren’t, to see if that’s a good fit for us," Moore says.
The experiment is just one example of how the local theater scene is adjusting its normal routines while continuing to build audiences back to pre-COVID levels, all while having to share the spotlight with glitzier Broadway shows continuing to visit downtown venues.
'People want great experiences'
At San Antonio's children-centric Magik Theatre, emerging from the pandemic has meant reviving its initiative of visiting schools and bringing shows straight to younger audiences.
At the same time, Magik staff say rejuvenating their collaborations with Hemisfair – which the theater calls home – for additional programming and community events is pivotal. Sometimes that means taking advantage of what's already scheduled to happen around Magik, such as October's Muertosfest, during which Magik put on a free showing of "Carmela Full of Wishes," raising the curtain on its new season.
That allows the Magik to not only strengthen its ties with Hemisfair, but to show off its venue to visitors who otherwise might never have noticed the easy-to-miss theater.
"I think that our relationship has only just begun in terms of what we’re able to do to leverage each other and support each other,” said Melissa Zarb-Cousin, Magik's managing director.
Zarb-Cousin, who used to perform on the Magik stage as a high schooler, was hired in June to focus on growing its community presence. She told KENS 5 at the time she wanted the theater to be "synonymous with a loving and safe place."
That priority starts with Magik's 2023-24 slate of productions, which, with the curtain now dropped on "Carmela," will go on to feature "The Velveteen Rabbit," "Don't let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! The Musical" and "The BFG." Zarb-Cousin says the stories share themes of hope, wishing and dreams—ideas the Magik wanted to emphasize at this point in its history, as the theater prepares to celebrate 30 years in 2024.
"It’s great timing in terms of getting into a post-COVID world that we’re focusing on stories that can offer a bit of hope," she said.
As well as a bit of spectacle.
The Magik team last season challenged itself with "The Hero Twins: Blood Race," creating a rotating stage and enrolling cast members in parkour classes to put on what the theater called one of its "most physically demanding shows" yet. Some of this year's productions – namely, the beloved Roald Dahl story about a big friendly giant – provide another opportunity for the theater to be even more imaginative.
“How we’re going to have giants onstage is yet to be seen,” Zarb-Cousin remarked. “But I’m sure it’s going to be magical.”
Meanwhile, about five miles away, the Public is preparing for big-scale entertainment of its own. The coming months will bring productions of "A Christmas Carol" and "West Side Story" to the Playhouse's Russell Hill Rogers Theater, which seats 349 patrons.
But Moore, as the artistic leader for both the Public and Classic companies this season, is also eager to tout "On Golden Pond," "A Raisin in the Sun" and "The Boys in Band"—intimate and performance-centered dramas that will play downstairs in the 60-seat Cellar Theatre, which Moore describes as a "beacon" for San Antonio's arts community.
“It’s an artistic decision," he says. "Do we feel like these pieces need huge space, or would (they) benefit an audience experiencing this on a minute level?”
San Antonio theatre devotees tasted the first fruits of the Public/Classic team-up with their joint October gala in which nearly $207,000 was raised, a "historic" amount that Public Theater Managing Director Christina Casella said "reaffirms the importance of the arts in our city."
Every dollar is important when it comes to local theatre logistics. According to Moore, it can cost up to $150,000 to put on a production, and organizations must strike a balance between making sure actors and crews get paid while keeping tickets as low as possible for patrons.
“We need the support of the community to keep going," he said. "People want great theater experiences, and great theater experiences are expensive.”
That remains true for the most well-known stage productions as well as the world premieres. In the latter category is “Midsummer Sueño," a San Antonio twist on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” coming in April that continues the local theater scene's push at diversifying what stories are being presented onstage. Like the Magik, the Public and Classic are trying to woo audiences back to their venues with titles that "we felt people would come out of their homes to experience."
From a financial standpoint, that objective got a bit easier for the Public this week. On Tuesday the theater announced it received a challenge grant from the Russell Hill Rogers Fund, which will provide the theater with an additional $100,000 if it can raise that amount through donations by the end of the year.
A new era, a new venue
Meanwhile, what used to be the Woodlawn Theatre organization is on the cusp of ushering in a new era, with an updated name and change of scenery to boot.
Wonder Theatre Executive/Artistic Director Chris Rodriguez said in a recent interview with KENS 5 that his team was on track to debut its new stage at Wonderland of the Americas mall, in the former home of Santikos Bijou Theater, early next year after a decade along Fredericksburg. The tentative plan is to raise the curtains at the new theater with a youth production of Disney's "Descendants" in January, with March's "Kinky Boots" representing the first proper main stage production and a kickoff to its 2024 season.
The first thing visitors to the Wonder Theatre's website will see these days is a request to pitch in some money; fundraising remains ongoing.
"Everyone keeps asking when we’re going to open, and I keep assuring everyone that it is happening. It’s just taking time, as with any major construction project," said Rodriguez, who described the price tag of the relocation as "a major cost."
"Sometimes things are late," he continued. "This being a full theater with educational classrooms, dressing rooms and a new workshop, it’s a lot to consider. We’re hoping everything will be done early in the new year.”
Rodriguez says the Wonder Theatre will announce its full 2024 season at a gala event currently expected to be held in February.
For now, though, his team is making final preparations for its holiday season show, "Meet Me in St. Louis." It'll be a first-time production for the organization, running from Dec. 1 to Dec. 23. Looking further, Rodriguez isn't ruling out future Wonder Theatre appearances at its old Deco District home.
"We’re definitely in conversations with them to keep that relationship going with our theater besides our main stage and our kid’s program," he said.
The most fresh-faced theater entities in town, however, might not have the luxury of their own performing space at all. They might be teams of passionate crew members or an individual playwright—however small or big they are, the San Antonio Theater Coalition (SATC) works to support them.
“We don’t have the buzz of Broadway, but we have a lot of theaters that are doing really, really good work," says SATC President Lindsey Van De Kirk.
SATC's mission is two-pronged: connecting theater industry workers with opportunities, and putting local shows on the radars of residents.
Van De Kirk says simply spreading awareness about what organizations like the Public, Classic, Magik and Wonder are doing goes a long way in a city as big as San Antonio. SATC is betting on theatergoers' curiosity this month with a Playbill ad during Broadway in San Antonio's run of "Annie" at the Majestic.
"Those people that go to that theater pay huge amounts of money," she said. "Of the people I've talked to that I know like to go to the Majestic, I've talked to quite a few who do not know that there are other (local) theaters they can go to."
At the same time, Van De Kirk says it gives her optimism that local organizations are trying new things and busting out of the usual ways of operating.
For Moore, the simple fact that his small Classic team has remained steadfast during a whirlwind of operational adjustment in recent months gives him faith that they can pull off anything, no matter how new. Though they are, as he puts it, "still looking for the light switches" at the Playhouse, he's confident that resilience will go a long way towards continuing to emphasize the vitality of local theater to anyone thinking it may be an outdated form of artistic expression.
"We must continue to cultivate theater audiences and theater practitioners," he says. "San Antonio has both; they just don’t know it yet. We have to continue to excite people by what we’re doing.”
>TRENDING ON KENS 5 YOUTUBE:
