Renaissance man

The
idea of a Performing Arts Center in downtown Rochester is not new. And
Rochester Broadway Theatre League Board Chairman Arnie Rothschild has been a
key player in arts-center discussions since the beginning.

            The initial idea — developed in
1997 by a broadly based task force — was to build a complex with several
theaters, to serve RBTL and its Broadway touring shows, the Rochester
Philharmonic Orchestra, Garth Fagan Dance, and smaller performance groups. The
large task force was then disbanded, and a smaller, more select group was
appointed to move the project forward.

            After initial enthusiasm, the
momentum for a full-fledged center seemed to die. And the Eastman School of
Music announced plans to renovate Eastman Theatre to serve its own needs and
the Rochester Philharmonic’s.

            Last week, however, the Performing
Arts Center was again front-page news. Governor George Pataki endorsed a $200
million downtown Renaissance Center, to include an arts center, the transit
center, and a Monroe Community College Advanced Technology Education Center at
the corner of East Main Street and North Clinton Avenue.

            The plan had evolved recently, and
quickly. And it took many local officials, including Rochester Mayor Bill
Johnson, by surprise. (Johnson’s reaction to the announcement can be found on
page 9.)

            Also surprised was Sarah Lentini,
president of the Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester. Lentini has
been meeting with a “Performing Arts Center Steering Committee,” formed a year
ago to revive Performing Arts Center discussions. The steering committee
includes representatives from nearly every local performing arts group, says
Lentini, as well as Mayor Johnson and Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks. “I
haven’t heard anything about the Renaissance Center concept except for what
I’ve read in the paper,” Lentini said earlier this week.

            Under the Renaissance Center plan,
the Performing Arts Center would include two theaters: a large one for major
productions like touring Broadway shows, and a smaller one with about 1,000
seats. But RBTL’s Arnie Rothschild says the center would be built in stages,
with the large theater built first. RBTL, which for years has pushed for a new
facility for its shows, would be a major tenant.

            Under the Renaissance Center plan,
the smaller theater would be built second, says Rothschild, when money became
available. A theater for Garth Fagan Dance — an important component of the
arts center when discussions began six years ago — has not yet been included
in the plan, and a Fagan spokesperson says Fagan Dance had not talked with
Renaissance Center proponents. Rothschild says he hopes to help Fagan Dance
secure a venue.

            In a City Newspaper interview last week, Rothschild discussed the
Renaissance Center project and his hopes that it will serve the needs of the
entire community. Following is an edited version of that discussion.

City:Who’s this performing arts center going to
be for?

            Rothschild: This concept is a wide-range-of-use kind of concept. In fact, in the most
recent drawings that I’ve seen, there are actually two theater spaces. One of
2,700 seats and one that’s either 900 or 1,200 seats, somewhere in that range.
So it should accomplish a good share of what our community needs.

            City: So it’s going to have space for the smaller
arts groups?

            Rothschild: It has space for the smaller arts groups. Initially, when we did the Performing
Arts Center task force, there were a number of needs identified. And two of the
four needs are addressed within this venue: a roadhouse with new construction
and a smaller venue. Third was a concert hall, which is going to be
accomplished with the renovation of the Eastman. And the fourth was a room
suitable for dance, and those conversations are going on continually with the
Garth Fagan folks. Once we get this project moving forward, I’d like to try to
be helpful if I could in assisting the Garth Fagan folks with theirs.

            [According to Garth Fagan Dance
Executive Director Ruby Lockhart, the dance company’s search for its own
performance theater is “on hold recently.” “We’re still formulating a plan for
moving forward,” she says. “We’ve had no dialogue with anyone regarding this
proposal for a new Renaissance Center.”]

            City:Who’s going to own the Renaissance
Center?

            Rothschild: I’m not sure how that ownership is going to be structured yet. I think the
options are a public benefit corporation or a 501-C3. It’s going to be some
form of community-generated ownership.

            City:So I assume management and operating
costs still haven’t been determined.

            Rothschild: There’s no way that any of those things have been decided, or are even
projected. The first step is to try to figure out if you can build it. The next
stage would be figuring out who’s going to own it. And the third would be
figuring out how we’d operate it. And then somebody has to develop a pro forma.
Then there’s another step, which is making sure we’re accounting for all the
venues in the marketplace. That we’re not just pulling bodies from one building
to another.

            City:How is ownership and management generally
determined for large public projects like this?

            Rothschild: It’s going to be governmental or extra-governmental, since it’s going to be a
community asset. I would guess it would be a public-benefit corporation, which
are established to build things. Later on the ownership can be rolled over to
an authority. The difference between authorities and public-benefit
corporations is that authorities have bonding ability.

City:Describe the process that led to this
conclusion of building the Renaissance Center.

            Rothschild: Honestly, I’m not aware of all the people who were involved in the process of
looking at it. I was pleasantly surprised, on the day that Maggie Brooks
announced her candidacy, to hear her make the Performing Arts Center project a
priority. I had heard over the last couple of years about a lot of
opportunities in locating the Performing Arts Center project within 1,500 feet
of a transit facility.

            All the way through the process of
trying to develop the Performing Arts Center, our primary concern had been how
we leverage the dollars that would allow us to do that. So we looked at every
available avenue. The reason this particular concept had appeal to me was that
it combined federal dollars and donated buildings that would change the site
acquisition costs.

            My role, because I’m not an urban
planner, has always been to talk about the economic advantages and the needs
for a Performing Arts Center. I think there has been a significant amount of
conversation offline, among people with leadership positions in the community,
sharing information about the concept. But certainly nobody could’ve moved it
forward until after the election was decided.

            City:You’re hoping that some federal funds
will come through the Department of Transportation’s Livable Communities
Initiative. Do you have any sense of how much money that could provide?

            Rothschild: As far as I understand, it’s a matching program. It allows us, hopefully, to
raise half of what we originally felt we might have to raise on a local basis.
Whatever it is, and whatever the requirements are, it is certainly going to be
a new funding stream that nobody had ever looked at prior to the evolution of
getting this thing involved with the transit facility.

            The transit facility provides two
things: funding sources and economies in terms of shared kinds of construction,
like heating and air conditioning. It can accomplish generating a much nicer
venue and at the same time allow for some creative programs that bring in
actual dollars.

City:Let’s talk a little bit about Broadway.
What’s the status of Broadway shows nationally?

            Rothschild: There’s been continual growth of touring Broadway product. Today it looks like
there’s going to be another 10 years of abundant product.

            The nature of touring Broadway has
changed. It used to be that Broadway shows were star-based shows. They’ve
evolved to much more highly produced kinds of performance. That means that the
kinds of venues that can accommodate them have to change and evolve.

            City:And there’s a demand for this increased
product?

            Rothschild: Absolutely — which is why you’re seeing different kinds of shows. Today you
see three kinds of Broadway shows: shows of original Broadway content; movies
that end up becoming plays, like Hairspray;
or shows that are created based on existing music, as we saw with Mamma Mia!. And there are a lot of shows
that are traditional, that keep coming back, like Annie, Cats, Les Misérables. There’s a bunch of
different ways that product is being generated. And that trend will continue
because there are more and more venues, more people who want to see them, more
and more convenience involved in taking them out to the marketplaces.

            What used to be a trip to New York
City to see plays has changed to a lot of regional performance areas that
people travel to. You see it in Toronto, Rochester, Cincinnati. It’s been a
rapidly changing dynamic. In fact, the amount of time that it takes for a show
to be successful on Broadway and then head for the road is substantially
shorter than it used to be.

            City:What’s been the pattern of attendance for
Broadway shows locally over the past five years or so?

            Rothschild: Well, that becomes a really interesting question, because one of the concerns
RBTL had was that because of the disrepair of the Auditorium Center, attendance
was moving down. So we were forced — we never wanted — to try to figure out
how to acquire the Auditorium Center so we could renovate it, because we only
leased the space. Because of that, a lot of this year’s shows become more
stable. In the past, a lot of the older theatergoers did not want to go to the
Auditorium Center anymore, and they’re an important market.

            City:Will the new theater allow us to get
different types of shows here? Or are we always going to get the same level of
performances because of the size of our market?

            Rothschild: The new theater will allow you to have different lengths of run, which becomes
important. You’re always going to be tied to the product that exists. But shows
will sit down in markets based on the market stability or the ability to
support the show.

            New construction is important
because patrons now want different amenities. They want bigger lobbies, more
concession operations, more ability for catered events, more kinds of things
that allow for corporate involvement. That’s not any different than how it’s
been with sports venues.

            Because of that, newly constructed
facilities have accommodated greater regional attractions than renovated
structures. There is no place in the country where renovating a structure has
led to big increases. But new venues, with bigger seats, with better restroom
operations, with better concessions operations, with air-conditioning, would
lend themselves to a wide range of things.

            This particular venue is not being
designed solely for Broadway. That will be the anchor. But there will be well
in excess of 200 events a year on an ongoing basis just in the larger theater
alone.

            City:What types of events are these?

            Rothschild: Well, you do music events, you can do corporate events, you can do comedy
events. That size room lends itself to good kinds of medium-sized entertainment
events. And what ends up happening is because the price-point of entertainment
moves up, it is critically important that you have great concession operations.
The model today is more like a movie-theater model than the old theater model.
A lot of the margins generated are things like parking, concessions, and the per-capita
expenditures that happen when you go to theater, that’s part of the overall
experience. Or the restaurant complexes that are nearby that are important when
you choose your location.

            City:What kind of impact is the new theater
going to have on the Auditorium?

            Rothschild: The Auditorium Center is probably a great 1,500-seat venue. At 1,500 seats it
can accommodate less-sophisticated productions. Even with the increased
restroom capacity it’s still potentially problematic. There are a lot of events
that go in there that not a lot of people are aware of. There are a lot of
music programs, a lot of ethnic and comedy programming. So there’s always a
place for the Auditorium Center, because it’s a very user-friendly venue. The
question was whether it could ever become the major venue. And it’s a wonderful
building, but it probably suffers more from location and security difficulties
than anything else.

            City:So renovations don’t allow you to do
everything that you would need to do to make the Auditorium Theatre a really
successful contemporary theater?

            Rothschild: Right. In the old model of Broadway, a star would be on Broadway and they’d do
it for a number of years; then they might head out to a few markets over a
short period of time. That’s not the model anymore. Now it’s these really
incredibly produced shows.

            It doesn’t matter to people who the
star of Phantom is, or who the star
of Beauty and the Beast is. It’s a
quality-control question. But when it comes into a market, retail thrives,
restaurants thrive, bus tours come in. Of the 112,500 people who attended Phantom the first time it came to
Rochester, better than 34 percent came from outside of the five-county metro
area. The economic impact of these regional theaters is just incredible.

            City:Is it true that certain producers insist
on a certain amount of space or visibility for concessions?

            Rothschild: Not only concessions, but their merchandise. They move in with T-shirts, CDs.
So it’s the merchandising in addition to the concession operations that are a
mandate, along with the quality of dressing rooms, the ease and security of
venues. We stood to lose a tremendous amount of Broadway product if we didn’t
renovate the Auditorium, because of dressing rooms and complaints that shows
would get when they’re trying to control quality. The quality of the theater is
critical in the decision to come to a market.

            City:Does RBTL get any share of profits from
concession sales?

            Rothschild: In the Auditorium equation? Concessions, yes. Merchandising, no. RBTL is not a
promoter or an at-risk promoter. It’s a facilitator of a lot of events.
[Presenter] Albert Nocciolino takes the risk on a show. RBTL does all the
staging, renting the venue, the ticketing, the things that enable the show.
It’s more a facilitating and educational institution. Our revenue shares derive
from continual use of the venues and the concessions we operate in the venues.

            City:How important are concession sales to
RBTL’s revenue share?

            Rothschild: They are hugely important in all entertainment and sporting events. They are
less significant in the Auditorium Theatre than they are in the rest of the
country because there’s not enough concession space. And when you have an
intermission, people can’t get to counters. This goes back to the ease of
design.

            City:And that’s something the renovations
could never have helped you with.

            Rothschild: No, can never help.

City:What about public input at this phase? I
think a lot of people feel the Renaissance Center project has come out of nowhere.
What role will the public have in the development of this new Performing Arts
Center?

            Rothschild: Maggie Brooks has been meeting with the folks in the Arts & Cultural
Council on an ongoing basis. And I think her message has been consistent —
developing arts venues to help the community grow has been a priority for her
because she sees it as a critical element.

            But those conversations are
continual. Is it possible to develop the perfect scenario where everything [in
the Performing Arts Center] is built at the same moment? I doubt it.

            When the original task force met, we
identified a number of needs. And early on, people began to price what that
would represent in terms of dollars, and it was cost prohibitive. So what you
do is you build those things that will have the greatest amount of ticket
appeal, and then you start adding additional venues from there.

            The thinking is that the large venue
will sell enough tickets to allow the smaller theater to function and prosper.
Our focus is to continually create opportunities for arts organizations. I
think that sometimes gets misunderstood as “I want this for me and there’s no
other step.”

            City:So you would start with the larger
theater, and then you’d use what money you make from the large theater to build
the smaller theater and whatever else.

            Rothschild: Right. It’s like university athletic departments. The football and basketball
teams will sell a lot of tickets. And because of the success of those athletic
programs, you’re able to develop a new pool for the swim team and a new fencing
arena. You start adding a lot of additional kinds of venues. I think the more
people you get to start sampling arts, culture, and entertainment — it goes
back to this rising tide that lifts all boats.

            City:Why didn’t the City of Rochester have a
greater role in the work that led up to the announcement of the Renaissance
Center?

            Rothschild: I do know that there have been conversations between Maggie [Brooks] and Bill
[Johnson] about the importance of these things being built downtown. And there
are some wonderful people in city leadership who have been supportive of a
Performing Arts Center for a long time. We just all got frustrated in trying to
figure out how to get it done. But people like [City Council President] Lois
Giess served on the initial task force. [Deputy Mayor] Jeff Carlson served on
the task force. Along with [former county executive] Jack Doyle, the mayor was
one of the creators of the task force.

            Certainly everybody’s involvement
has been critical. I think what may have changed this dynamic a little bit was
the donation of those buildings by Max Farash to the county.

            City:If you could have changed something along
the way, in the planning stages of this project, what would it be?

            Rothschild:
I wish I had been a little bit better of a communicator, so the arts
community understood that my role as RBTL chair was first to fix the problems
with the RBTL, second improve its operations, and third look long term. It was
apparent to me that long term meant developing more performance spaces. And it
wasn’t just for RBTL. It was for the city of Rochester and the area.

This article appears in Jan 14-20, 2004.