DTD: Majestic Theatre

[dfwcre8tive]

DSM has brought a lot of activity to the Majestic over the past year or so. Hopefully it won't go dark for too long.

Majestic Theater losing money, management firm
10:17 PM CDT on Wednesday, May 13, 2009
By JASON WHITELY / WFAA-TV
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/localnews/news8/stories/wfaa090513_mo_majestic.22ce1ebc.html

DALLAS – Outside of the art deco historic structures of Fair Park, the Majestic Theater is one of the city's cultural crown jewels.

"Most of the major stars in America have been on that stage at one time or another,” said Michael Jenkins, president of the Dallas Summer Musicals. “There's no question about it."

The 88-year-old historic venue still sees stars – just not enough of them.

Dallas Summer Musicals Management, a local non-profit, has managed the historic venue for a decade and has given the Majestic a renaissance.

"When we first took over the Majestic Theater it was used 6 percent of the time," Jenkins said. "I'm happy to tell you now it's 69 percent occupied."

Still, DSM admits it’s not enough. The Majestic needs to be used 90 percent of the time to break even, Jenkins said.

The non-profit said it has lost $1 million and can't afford anymore. So, at the end of June, Dallas Summer Musicals is giving the Majestic back to the city.

Finding a new operator in a difficult economy is likely to be a challenge.

"I'm certainly concerned,” said Maria Munoz-Blanco, Dallas’ director of Cultural Affairs. “It's change, and change always makes you a little bit nervous. If we could have kept DSM we would have done it. They were a wonderful operator. In the current circumstances, we have to look for a plan B."

Along with installing a new air conditioning system, the city will soon replace the Majestic's roof. The improvements are designed to reduce operating costs, Munoz-Blanco said.

The city is prepping to start a search for new management companies. Meanwhile, booked events will go on as scheduled.

But the Majestic will compete with new performing arts center in the future.

Jenkins said Dallas Summer Musicals will now concentrate on running the successful Music Hall at Fair Park, a much larger venue.

The city said there will likely be fewer performances at the Majestic this fall and in the future until the industry of artists finds a creative solution.

E-mail jwhitely@wfaa.com

[SDORN]

Not good.

[Mballar]

I heard this story on the news this evening. While I don't welcome the news, I'm hoping that the City's investments in the facility (e.g. new roof, new a/c) are signs that the City plans to preserve/maintain the landmark theater until it the Majestic can see better days. However, with venues like the House of Blues, Music Hall at Fair Park, and upcoming Performing Arts Center, there will be some stiff competition to book the Majestic.

I'd like to think, though, that Dallas can/will increase its profile as a regional draw for concerts/performances of all kinds (stage plays, comedy shows, ballet, opera, bands, etc.). Enough so, that we will be able to keep all of the aforementioned venues consistently booked. . . and profitable. Whatever happens, I hope that Majestic is here to stay.

[shaun3000]

The Majestic is a great house and my favorite theatre in D/FW. It's small enough to be intimate without being tiny. It reminds me of the great Broadway theaters. Unlike the Music Hall, which is huge and, well, ugly. I've seen several shows at the Majestic over the years, including the first national tour of Rent and, most recently, the wonderful national tour of Frost/Nixon.

[xen0blue]

make it back into a movie theater!

[downtownguy25]

Similar story going on in LA,

Future of 1927-era East L.A. theater in question

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/05/eastside-theater.html

[NThomas]

What about getting a management team that CAN book shows.

IMO, Live Nation has done a good job since they took over the SuperPages.com Center, HOB always seems to have a big name. How about it Dallas? Let Live Nation do the same thing with the Majestic.

[msutton]

Do they still have that small black box space in the basement?

[cowboyeagle05]

Similar story going on in LA,

Future of 1927-era East L.A. theater in question

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/05/eastside-theater.html


Except that LA theater is actually abandoned the Majestic is a functioning theater and has most of what it needs to function.Iits just not in a good spot right now being located near the back of revitalizing Downtown Dallas activity and being replaced by the Arts District venues and continued use of Fair Park Music Hall.

Maybe if that hotel project had happened that little section would be doing better. Right now the biggest action that happens near the Majestic is the Club that is open some nights of the week.

Maybe once the Park opens the Theater will be better situated as development tries to fill in and market to people who would want to live/work/play near a brand new park.

There is potential there now that there will be more public space with the parks completion city events could eventually include using the Majestic in addition to helping spur new development. Its not like the Majestic has a huge Parking access problem. Plus eventually there will be a second park built at the Majestic back door Griffin Street Park which will be even bigger and make the are more attractive to new business. Its just going to take some time for the pieces to fall into place.

[dfwcre8tive]

Are You Interested in Running the Majestic Theater? Because Now's Your Big Chance.
By Robert Wilonsky in News You Can Actually Use, Actually
Friday, May. 15 2009 @ 11:00AM

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/05/after_seeing_wfaa-channel_8s_p.php

[dfwcre8tive]

A show for the ageless, the ages at Majestic Theatre
10:45 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 8, 2009
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/sblow/stories/DN-blow_06met.ART.East.Edition1.3599396.html

It's one of the great old staples in show business – getting the gang together to put on a show.

Who cares if the malt-shop gang is now the Metamucil set?

Next weekend, the second annual Spectacular Senior Follies takes the stage at the Majestic Theatre. And for both the performers and the venue, it will be a testament to staying power.

The well-seasoned cast is thrilled to be singing and dancing on the stage of the Majestic. Many of them grew up going to shows there in the 1940s. A few performed there back then.

But they're also a little worried about the future of the grand old theater. With the opening soon of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts and its four stage venues, the Majestic's niche is a little less clear.

I sat in on a rehearsal of the Senior Follies last Sunday. The old-fashioned variety show is a lot of fun – and very well done.

But this wasn't your usual rehearsal full of starry-eyed kids. Rodney over there had a pacemaker implanted a few days earlier. And Carmen was up all night. No, not partying, welcoming a new grandchild into the world.

The rules say that all cast members must be at least 55 years old. But most appear to be a decade or two or three over that.

With this group, the traditional showbiz good-luck wish should be: "Break a hip."

Yet the 100-member cast still knows how to put on a lively two-hour show.

"Aren't they something? The talent is just really wonderful," marveled the follies' founder, Ned Startzel. He's 91 today and will be singing and dancing in the show.

Not just dancing, jitterbugging! "With a sassy gal of about 70," he said.

Cast members fret about the Majestic following news at the start of the summer that the Dallas Summer Musicals is pulling out as operator of the city-owned theater.

For many cast members, the theater's history is their history.

Tap dancer Frances Dempsey, 70, was raised in Oak Cliff and gave me a little insight on dating strategy. "The cheapest theater was the Texas on Jefferson. But when we could grab a boy with more than $2 in his pocket, we'd get him to take us to the Majestic," she said.

"We thought we were queens of the world. It was so regal."

Michael Jenkins, president and managing director of the Dallas Summer Musicals, said earlier news reports about the Majestic may have been overly dire.

"It was accurate that we were leaving, but it wasn't because we were giving up on the Majestic," he said. "It was because our lease had expired."

Depending on the new contract terms offered by the city of Dallas, the DSM might bid to continue operating the Majestic, Jenkins said.

But is the future of the theater financially secure? "No, I honestly can't say that," he replied.

I put the same question to Maria Munoz-Blanco, the city's director of cultural affairs. "That's a very interesting question," she sidestepped. "We've looked at it from a variety of angles."

It really boils down to whether the theater can attract enough productions and whether those productions can fill enough seats.

So far, ticket sales for the Senior Follies have been slow. (To help things along, go to www.seniorfollies.com or call 214-691-7200.)

Munoz-Blanco made it pretty simple: "The best way people can support the Majestic is come to shows here."

[Mballar]

Always good to see events at the Majestic. It's definitely a part of Dallas History, and should be utilized as much as possible. i wonder if new long-term management been found for the Majestic?

[maconahey]

I can't wait to see Jim Gaffigan there October 23rd :D

[dfwcre8tive]

City Couldn't Find Takers to Run the Majestic, So Office of Cultural Affairs Is Now in Charge
By Robert Wilonsky, Fri., Sep. 24 2010 @ 12:39PM
Categories: Arts, City Hall
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2010/09/city_couldnt_find_takers_to_ru.php

​Last December, Maria Munoz-Blanco, director of the city's Office of Cultural Affairs, told Unfair Park that she had hoped to have in place a new operator for the Majestic Theatre by mid-May of 2010 at the latest. Requests for proposals were out, and, fingers crossed, the city hoped it could find someone to take over managing the facility following Dallas Summer Musicals' decision more than a year ago to leave after suffering a $1-million loss since taking over the downtown landmark in 1999.

Turns out, the city didn't get any proposals it liked -- blame it on the bad economy or what Munoz-Blanco calls "the growing market" of entertainment venues in and around downtown. Which is why, beginning November 1, the Office of Cultural Affairs will take over the Majestic's bookings. As it happens, that Sarah Palin performance on November 10 is the city's first official rental as operator.

"We put out the call for a management organization under terms that would be mutually beneficial," Munoz-Blanco says. "But the RFP didn't bring in what we were looking for. We tried to work it out with Dallas Summer Musicals to see if we could facilitate them staying in the building, but their decision was to focus on the Music Hall, which is the core of their business, and with some available dates at the Music Hall -- with Dallas Opera moving to the Winspear -- it became time for Dallas Summer Musicals to focus on that. We could have closed the Majestic or operated it ourselves, and we couldn't close down the Majestic. It's too important to the cultural life of the city."

...

I asked her: What happens if the city can't make a go of the Majestic? Will it have to put out another call for proposals, or is there a chance it could be shuttered till someone does take an interest in reviving the venue that opened on April 11, 1921, with a performance by Olga Petrova?

"I am going to be an optimist and tell you there is no worst-case scenario," she says. "We're not going to produce programs here. We'll try to be cautious on the expenditures so we can generate as much revenue as is necessary to maintain operations. But it's important to liven up this part of downtown. It's a challenge, sure, but we're arts people. That doesn't stop us from doing anything."

[CasperITL]

Downtown coming alive, some say.

[aceplace]

I asked her: What happens if the city can't make a go of the Majestic? Will it have to put out another call for proposals, or is there a chance it could be shuttered till someone does take an interest in reviving the venue that opened on April 11, 1921, with a performance by Olga Petrova?

"I am going to be an optimist and tell you there is no worst-case scenario," she says. "We're not going to produce programs here. We'll try to be cautious on the expenditures so we can generate as much revenue as is necessary to maintain operations. But it's important to liven up this part of downtown. It's a challenge, sure, but we're arts people. That doesn't stop us from doing anything."
Maybe that hypercautious attitude is part of the problem?

They should be looking for ways to fill the seats with rear ends, as often as possible. Just trying to make enough revenue to barely survive isn't going to work. It will merely prolong their death.

I agree that the DSM was probably negligent in booking shows there. They make money filling the 3,300 seat Music Hall, and probably considered that a competing theatre would hurt sales at the Majestic. Which is what they thought about the Winspear.

Their problem was lack of vision. Dallas is a city with a high diversity of tastes in stage shows,and a 3 week run of Mary Poppins in the Music Hall does not saturate the market. The people at the Eisemann theatre in Richardson don't think so.

[Mena]

City Couldn't Find Takers to Run the Majestic, So Office of Cultural Affairs Is Now in Charge
By Robert Wilonsky, Fri., Sep. 24 2010 @ 12:39PM
Categories: Arts, City Hall
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2010/09/city_couldnt_find_takers_to_ru.php

​Last December, Maria Munoz-Blanco, director of the city's Office of Cultural Affairs, told Unfair Park that she had hoped to have in place a new operator for the Majestic Theatre by mid-May of 2010 at the latest. Requests for proposals were out, and, fingers crossed, the city hoped it could find someone to take over managing the facility following Dallas Summer Musicals' decision more than a year ago to leave after suffering a $1-million loss since taking over the downtown landmark in 1999.

Turns out, the city didn't get any proposals it liked -- blame it on the bad economy or what Munoz-Blanco calls "the growing market" of entertainment venues in and around downtown. Which is why, beginning November 1, the Office of Cultural Affairs will take over the Majestic's bookings. As it happens, that Sarah Palin performance on November 10 is the city's first official rental as operator.

"We put out the call for a management organization under terms that would be mutually beneficial," Munoz-Blanco says. "But the RFP didn't bring in what we were looking for. We tried to work it out with Dallas Summer Musicals to see if we could facilitate them staying in the building, but their decision was to focus on the Music Hall, which is the core of their business, and with some available dates at the Music Hall -- with Dallas Opera moving to the Winspear -- it became time for Dallas Summer Musicals to focus on that. We could have closed the Majestic or operated it ourselves, and we couldn't close down the Majestic. It's too important to the cultural life of the city."

...

I asked her: What happens if the city can't make a go of the Majestic? Will it have to put out another call for proposals, or is there a chance it could be shuttered till someone does take an interest in reviving the venue that opened on April 11, 1921, with a performance by Olga Petrova?

"I am going to be an optimist and tell you there is no worst-case scenario," she says. "We're not going to produce programs here. We'll try to be cautious on the expenditures so we can generate as much revenue as is necessary to maintain operations. But it's important to liven up this part of downtown. It's a challenge, sure, but we're arts people. That doesn't stop us from doing anything."Sarah Palin performance?

[cowboyeagle05]

Sarah Palin performance?
How else do political figures make money outside of office, they do speaking engagements.

[tamtagon]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/103010dnmetmajestic.2566b74.html


City of Dallas to manage historic Majestic Theatre
October 30, 2010

By RUDOLPH BUSH / The Dallas Morning News

For more than a decade, the historic Majestic Theatre downtown has been booked, maintained and managed by the same organization that runs the Dallas Summer Musicals at Fair Park.

But as of Sunday, that will end, and the city of Dallas will take direct charge of a property that has long been an important part of the city's history and arts scene.
...
Since the late 1990s, those losses were covered by the Summer Musicals' successful Broadway program at the Music Hall at Fair Park.

But the organization couldn't continue to absorb those costs, said Gary Griffith, a former council member and chairman of the management group's board.

"We just could not operate it at a loss, and we could not enter into an agreement that left us open to a loss," he said.

The city, meanwhile, isn't able to subsidize the Summer Musicals' operations there, City Manager Mary Suhm said.

The result was that no new contract could be agreed upon.

Now, without an outside firm to manage the Majestic, the city will be responsible for all of its costs, including any losses.
...
Instead, the city will simply staff, maintain and attempt to book the theater.

That isn't necessarily an easy thing to do, Suhm acknowledged.

"We've hired people who have experience, and we're hoping to pull that off. Keep your fingers crossed for us," she said.


I hope it's safe to assume the city's responsibility to staff, maintain and attempt to book the theater will require less money than making sure the DSM did not lose money.

[lakewoodhobo]

^The city can't book events at Fair Park, so what makes people think they could ever fill the Majestic? I think it's time to consider re-repurposing it as an art house movie theater (something that is lacking downtown and in the Arts District). Plus it would bring more people to Main Street Garden and surrounding restaurants.

[cowboyeagle05]

^The city can't book events at Fair Park, so what makes people think they could ever fill the Majestic? I think it's time to consider re-repurposing it as an art house movie theater (something that is lacking downtown and in the Arts District). Plus it would bring more people to Main Street Garden and surrounding restaurants.

I thought the city allowed such offers in their earlier bidding process before but so far no one has shown any business interest in such an operation in the Majestic. I think until things are desnser around downtown Dallas and the Downtown core becomes a more default attraction neighborhood the Majestic will continue to just get a show every now and then that will barely keep the place open. Until that day comes this Dallas historical landmark will have to continue to just be maintained enough to keep it from falling into the ground. It's currently worth more maintained even in it's empty state than knocked down as a parking lot so it's not going anywhere.

I mean things are already looking better for the Majestic since Main Street Gardens got completed. The park is genuinely attracting improvements to the area and retail of some sort is more attracted to being near the better maintained neighborhood thanks to the park. In the next decade Griffins Street park right behind the Majestic will get built and more economic development will fill in and improve the northern side of the theater. Then in that future the city owns a pretty large entertainment venue next to a major park bigger than Main Street Gardens which could more easily attract regular uses better than today's current market. Talk about visions of a bigger festival that could spread from future Griffin Park to the Majestic to Main Street Gardens. Is it safe to use the word synergy yet?