4 Performing-Arts Groups Innovate to Survive — and Thrive — in the Post-Covid Era

For one performing-arts group, the pandemic rebound depends on making a night at the movies a can’t-miss experience. For two others, the answer lies in partnerships to share space or book acts together. A fourth organization, meanwhile, is going for broke on digital productions.

Performing-arts organizations are facing arguably the toughest road to recovery after the pandemic. They suffered dearly — doors shuttered, revenue models broke, and a base of donors and patrons already declining and aging eroded even further. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, one of the oldest and largest nonprofit regional companies, doesn’t have the money to finish its season. Long-standing theaters in Atlanta; Greensboro, N.C.; and San Diego are closing.

The industry’s being challenged as never before, say insiders. “As emergency government funds have ceased and ticket buyers are nowhere near pre-pandemic levels, many theaters are struggling to survive,” says Vicki Reiss, executive director of the Shubert Foundation, which awarded a record $37.6 million in general-operating support to 609 nonprofit performing-arts organizations in 2022.

What’s the answer? Here are new strategies that groups are trying.

Charcuterie Boards and Connection

The 47-year-old Myrna Loy Center is one of the most vibrant small performance venues in the West, luring even international acts to its fortress-like building, formerly a county jail, in Helena, Mont., population 33,000. It also runs a strong arts-education program. Its motto, in keeping with the repurposing of the jail: “Art transforms everything.”

The group, however, was born as a film society. (It’s named after the 1930s and ‘40s film star and Montana native who made her stage debut at 13 in Helena.) The organization hopes its two-screen cinema can help it escape the gravitational pull of the Covid crisis. During the pandemic, the center offered deeply discounted theater rentals and private showings for Covid “pods” — families or small groups who limited their interactions with others. It’s continuing to promote those events and enhance the movie-going experience.

The Myrna Loy now offers charcuterie plates and other snacks in addition to the “the best popcorn” in town. It’s also promoting happy hours at its pub as an after-work watering hole and a pre-show rendezvous point. Next up: a capital campaign to replace the 40-year-old seats with cushier ones.

The center’s main rival is an 11-screen Cinemark megaplex — daunting competition in the battle to coax cinema lovers from the home comfort of Netflix and other streamers. The Myrna Loy, however, believes it can provide more fun and energy than a corporate behemoth. “We’re the David in the Goliath story,” says executive director Krys Holmes.

The organization is also looking to expand work outside its walls. With a National Endowment for the Arts “creative placemaking” grant and other funding, the group commissioned and installed 24 pieces of public art and two iconic murals to invigorate the bleak streetscape of its home in East Helena; created a 30-minute documentary about the area; and held street parties celebrating the neighborhood. One of the coolest projects, according to Holmes: Dumpster Art Day, when five artists turned dumpsters into artworks.

This outreach has deepened the Myrna Loy’s connection to its neighborhood and the city, she adds. Its donor base is up, defying a national slide in the number of donors giving to nonprofits.

Beating High Rents

A room in the bowels of a commercial building in New York’s Meatpacking District offers hope for the city’s battered independent theater community. At the end of a long, winding basement hallway, a bright yellow door opens to a 1,500-square-foot rehearsal studio equipped with sprung floors for dancers, sound equipment, and even a cozy kitchen. Cost to rent in the pricey neighborhood: $10 an hour or less.

The West Village Rehearsal Co-Op opened in January as a sanctuary from New York’s runaway real-estate costs, and it’s on its way to serving 1,500 or more artists by the year’s end. When the neighborhood’s community board decided to set aside space for the arts in a new development, four independent theater organizations considered vying for the opportunity, then opted for a joint venture.

Coming out of the pandemic, “the only way forward for all of us is to work in collaboration and partnership,” says Randi Berry, founder of IndieSpace, one of the four groups and a backbone nonprofit for independent theater in New York.

Each of the other three organizations — Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, HERE Arts Center, and New Ohio Theatre — use the studio for two months out of the year. IndieSpace books the space at other times. Collectively, they pay for upkeep, management, and the ridiculously low $1 annual cost of the 99-year lease.

The always-tough New York real-estate market grew even worse for small theaters during the pandemic, says Berry, who previously worked in commercial real estate handling billions in deals. With their doors closed for more than a year, some groups lost their leases. Others had to find new venues when Covid-related restrictions required HVAC upgrades that landlords wouldn’t take on.

“A lot of our venues are in basements,” Berry says. “There is no outside air intake.”

The co-op rehearsal space, she adds, could be introduced across New York. “We really see this as a template. It’s the first step in something we need to see in every neighborhood.”

My Competition Is My Ally

As the worst of the pandemic lifted and Boston’s Theater District reopened, the Boch Center emerged in a strong position. It had applied $10 million in federal relief to clear its debt, and philanthropy had stepped up to pay for extensive renovations of its famed venues — the Wang and Shubert theaters. Audiences packed its first performances, which featured hard-to-get acts booked in part because of the center’s work to open a Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame in 2019.

Corwin Wickersham

Boch CEO Joe Spaulding, a 50-year veteran of the music and performing-arts industries, knows this run of good fortune might expire without warning. To bolster Boch’s position, it has joined the Theater Alliance, a new collaboration of 39 theaters and performing-arts venues in 18 markets. Members include nonprofit peers such as the Tulsa Performing Arts Center and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust but also for-profit giants like Radio City Music Hall and the Grand Old Opry. Some might consider this an unholy alliance, but Spaulding sees new revenue and savings potential through collaborative efforts for sales, marketing, sponsorships, and more.

“We’re going to book together. We’re going to buy together. We’re going to sell together. And we’re going to brand together,” he says.

The Oak View Group, an investment and advisory company for the sports and live-entertainment industries, launched the Theater Alliance in January. Oak View runs a similar collaboration in which stadiums and arenas jointly book acts and buy everything from advertising to snacks. The new venture will also spearhead collective fundraising through memorabilia auctions and an annual gala.

The pandemic crisis spurred an earlier first-of-its-kind partnership. Independent performing-arts groups, festivals, and promoters — both for-profit and nonprofit — created the National Independent Venue Association to lobby and win from Congress $16 billion in relief aid. The group’s membership tops 1,000, numbers that Spaulding says provide the industry new strength.

“I’ve always said I believe in partnerships and collaboration,” he says. Earlier in his career, arts leaders often said they would rather drown than partner with others or merge. “And by the way, they’ve mostly gone under. I’ve been living the other way.”

Selling Art by the Pixel

In the first days of the pandemic, even as it hurried to close operations, plug a budget shortfall, and safeguard the health and finances of its staff and artists, the Dallas Black Dance Theatre saw an opportunity. Some 20 years earlier, the organization had explored offering dance education and performances digitally, only to conclude that the future would have to wait for, among other things, the arrival of a faster and stronger internet than broadband provided.

When lockdowns pushed much of life in America online, the group dusted off those ambitions. By summer, it was selling tickets to a robust virtual season. Dancers took to iconic and unusual outside spaces for filming — the plaza in front of city hall, a lakeside dock, a high-rise rooftop.

By year’s end, the programming had netted $100,000 — enough to persuade the group to continue virtual work. “We didn’t even think about going back,” says executive director Zenetta Drew.

Today, Dallas Black Dance Theatre offers conservatory-level dance classes online, a schedule of virtual performances, and an on-demand streaming platform. Perhaps best of all for its bottom line: It has contracts with four school districts, including the 150,000-student Dallas school system, to deliver virtual performances.

Digital work now makes up a quarter of the group’s ticket-sales revenue and is helping engage new audiences, including digital-first young people and older patrons who may shy away from close spaces in the post-pandemic era. Sixty percent of its virtual audiences come from outside Texas, including patrons from 34 countries and 38 states.

Arts leaders often say that streaming and virtual performances can’t be monetized and depress in-person audience numbers. But attendance is strong at Dallas Black Dance Theatre with visitors to Dallas showing up in bigger numbers than previously. When rural Texans have seen a virtual performance, they often come to a live performance when they visit the city. “That’s how come this weekend we were sold out, and 40 percent of the people who showed up had never ever seen us,” Drew says gleefully.