AUGUST 13, 2009 ISSUE
Blowing Rock’s Hayes Center To Suspend Operations
Stage Company Director Kenneth Kay Resigns
The Hayes Performing Arts Center in Blowing Rock, featuring a 348-seat auditorium, will temporarily suspend operations because of economic conditions.Three years after it opened, the multi-million dollar Mariam and Robert Hayes Performing Arts Center has announced that it will temporarily close its doors as of September 6. A press release issued Tuesday stated the center and its resident Blowing Rock Stage Company will suspend operations with hopes of reopening in 2010.
“We are not closing the Hayes Performing Arts Center. We are suspending operations to give us time to restructure and reorganize,” said Ron Bryson, chairman of the Blowing Rock Community Arts Center Foundation Board of Trustees. “That facility up there needs to be a true performing arts center for the High Country region, not just the Blowing Rock area.”
Bryson said the foundation intends to re-open the Hayes Center in time for the 2010 summer season, but he hopes to see it re-open sooner.
The foundation has experienced a significant drop-off in monetary contributions over the past year as a result of the economic downturn. Expected donations have dropped, and payments from foundations have been slower to come because of money lost in the stock market, Bryson said.
“We had what we thought were gifts that we could count on that didn’t materialize,” he said.
The Hayes Center cost $9.6 million to build. A capital campaign for the facility raised $10.9 million for the construction and an additional $2 million for operations, Bryson said. The center currently has a couple million dollars in debt, he said.
When planning for the performing arts center first started, philanthropy was much greater, Bryson pointed out, but the Hayes Center failed to attract a broad enough donor base. The center has had more than 600 donors, but a “very small percentage of that contributed a lot of wealth,” he said.
While ticket sales this year have been good, Bryson said, “occupancy levels haven’t been as good as we had hoped.” The center averages about 55 to 60 percent occupancy at shows and would like to see that number between 70 to 75 percent.
“Artistically, we’ve had probably the best year the Stage Company has had,” Bryson said, but having a few nights of full houses isn’t enough to balance out 60-percent attendance during other nights in an 18-show run. Bryson said the center has been very sensitive to the market and the economy, but ticket prices may need to be increased.
The Board of Trustees decided to suspend operations at the conclusion of the Blowing Rock Stage Company’s summer season, which typically draws the strongest attendance. The final show in the summer season is Hank Williams: Lost Highway, opening Friday, August 21, and closing Sunday, September 6.
“We’ve gotten to the point where our cash flow was severely constrained, and we didn’t want it to get any worse,” Bryson said.
Two shows had been planned for the Stage Company’s leaf season—The Scarlet Letter and Dracula. The Jewish Film Festival, a fundraiser for the Temple of the High Country planned for Sunday through Wednesday, September 13 to 16, is still scheduled to take place. Other scheduled shows, including concerts by the Blue Ridge Descendents, Diana and Sarvis Ridge, the Kruger Brothers and Echo Park, are not certain, he said.
While the Hayes Center schedules a number of musical, comedy and other kinds of entertainment events throughout the year, the primary user of the facility is the Blowing Rock Stage Company, which last year received the North Carolina Theatre Conference’s 2008 George A. Parides Professional Theatre Award—presented to the best professional theatre in the state.
However, Bryson said, “the Stage Company…is a small piece of a much larger operation. In order to position [the Hayes Center] as a community resource, we need to reorganize and restructure and redefine that.”
Currently, the Board of Trustees has hired a consultant with experience in theatre and performing arts operations to help redefine the Hayes Center.
“We’re examining every facet of the operation,” said Bryson. “No stone has been left unturned in terms of evaluating where we are.”
The board is being restructured and is addressing such issues as donors, debt, reorganization and partnerships. The Hayes Center needs to build stronger relationships with the Town of Blowing Rock and other entities, Bryson said. The board also plans to hire “a CEO-level person that has broad theatre and performing arts experience” to run the facility, he said.
Kenneth Kay has served as the producing artistic director of the Blowing Rock Stage Company since 2001 and has been serving as the interim executive director of the Hayes Center over the past year. Kay announced that he will resign from those positions at the conclusion of Lost Highway, effective Tuesday, September 8.
“The board and staff are proud of the body of work that they have provided our community, and we commend Kenneth Kay and his staff for the manner in which they have coped with this difficult economic climate,” Bryson said in the press release issued Tuesday. Calls and an email to Kay were not returned as of press time Wednesday.
The Blowing Rock Stage Company has provided professional theatre and educational programs since 1986. In December 2000, the Blowing Rock Community Arts Center Foundation, Inc. formed to promote the advancement of cultural arts and humanities in Blowing Rock and the North Carolina High Country through a regional arts center. The foundation set a capital campaign goal of $8 million for the new facility.
The Performing Arts Center broke ground on July 10, 2005, and on August 12, 2006, the center opened with a lavish fundraiser called “Eleganza.” A formal ribbon cutting took place on August 18, 2006, with the late Mariam Hayes in attendance. The Blowing Rock Stage Company moved into the facility as the theatre in residence.
The Hayes Center features a 348-seat auditorium and a smaller theatre space upstairs. The parking lot has 158 spaces.
According to Blowing Rock Town Council minutes, in a May 2008 meeting with the Town Council, former Hayes Center executive director Jeff Clark reported that the center’s yearly economic impact on the region was $9.1 million—greater than the $5 million estimated when the center was planned.
Bryson urges the community to pack the house at the Hayes Center for Lost Highway, which, he said, “has the potential to be the best performance of the year.”
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