Grove Playhouse Closed, Future in Question

By Fabiola Santiago, Christine Dolen and Daniel Chang, The Miami Herald

Apr. 12–Fresh off its 50th anniversary and days away from the opening of a play starring Lucie Arnaz, the Coconut Grove Playhouse was shut down Wednesday amid what was being called a financial crisis.

A sign on the door of South Florida’s largest and most historic regional theater read: “Building closed until further notice.” Some theater workers said their paychecks had bounced and theater officials said the liability insurance had lapsed.

A meeting of the theater’s board of directors is scheduled for noon today at which time decisions are expected on the playhouse’s immediate future.

Shelly Spivack, chair of the playhouse board of directors, said Wednesday no decision has been made about the future of the playhouse or the staging of the play. She refused to elaborate on the insurance issue or any of the apparent financial problems.

“The playhouse for years has had tremendous financial issues,” Spivack said. “That is not a secret to anybody. We, the executive committee, have no desire to shut the playhouse down, nor to not perform the play.”

But the board will meet “to make some tough decisions and one of them will be what to do about the play,” she said.

“It is certainly not my intention to do anything that will destroy the legacy or the history of that playhouse. Shutting it down for good is not the intention of this board at all.”

The theater’s producing artistic director, Arnold Mittelman, who has been at the playhouse since 1985, refused to comment.

But actors, refusing to accept the possibility the show wouldn’t go on, vowed to stage the upcoming play Sonia Flew “even in the park.” With the theater shuttered, they were rehearsing off-site.

In a bid to save the play about an American family dealing with ghosts of its Cuban past, Sonia Flew’s lead actress Arnaz launched a fundraising drive aimed at some of the wealthiest members of Miami’s Cuban community.

“This is a major financial crisis,” Arnaz said in a letter. “We desperately need your help and we need it fast.”

A major donation was immediately made on behalf of Miami-based Bacardi USA, a longtime supporter of the playhouse. Arnaz also kicked in an unspecified amount.

For playhouse employees, the crisis is more than artistic.

Nick Velkov, who has worked in the playhouse box office throughout this season and also is a South Florida actor, said recent paychecks have bounced.

“We didn’t get paid last Friday, and the paycheck the Friday before that bounced; we’re supposed to be paid again this Friday,” he said. “We were supposed to go back to the theater Tuesday to get the [bounced] check reissued, but we weren’t allowed inside.

“I live paycheck to paycheck. So not having another one this week will kill me. I’ve had to go into my savings.”

The playhouse’s most recent financial problems have been building since last fall, says Genessa Goldsmith Proctor, a scenic artist who has worked with the Playhouse since 1977.

Proctor says she became concerned in January when directors asked her to hold on to her paycheck. “They were making requests for paychecks, which are issued on Fridays, to not be deposited in the bank until 3 p.m.,” she says.

Soon after, Proctor says, the playhouse began to lose credit with hardware stores, paint shops and other local suppliers, who were demanding cash for the supplies Proctor needed to build sets.

Then in February, Proctor says, the problem got worse when the playhouse bounced two checks to suppliers and one to the pension and welfare fund of the United Scenic Artists, of which Proctor is a member. “They were telling suppliers to re-deposit” the bad checks, Proctor says. “The re-deposits bounced. Now the suppliers are done.”

Proctor declined to reveal the amounts of the bad checks but she said playhouse creditors have been trying to reach a resolution.

Critical financial troubles are not unusual among South Florida’s cultural nonprofits, which rely on a combination of ticket sales, private sponsorships and public grants to survive.

The playhouse has an annual budget of $5.9 million, but is poised to receive $20 million in the coming years from the county — $15 million from the multibillion-dollar capital improvement bond approved by voters in 2004 — for a major building renovation.

But to receive the county money, the playhouse has to meet certain requirements, not least of which is showing it is financially stable.

“They have to pass the readiness factor: Are you strong enough to handle programming and marketing?” said Michael Spring, director of Miami-Dade’s department of cultural affairs. “You’re not going to invest $20 million, or even a million, if something doesn’t look healthy enough to survive.”

For the past nine months playhouse’s administrators have tried repeatedly to access the money, but each time they have failed over issues such as proper planning and budgeting for the theater’s renovation, Spring said.

Playhouse administrators tried in November 2005 to sell the theater property for $8 million to Strategic Properties Group, a private developer who planned to build apartments and shops on the Main Street property, and use the funds to build a new theater.

But the deal to sell the property — a gift from the state — fell through after the building was deemed a historic landmark by Miami’s preservation board in October 2005. The playhouse is appealing the designation, which strictly limits changes to the building’s exterior.

The timing of the latest troubles may upset a performance with significant relevance to South Florida audiences.

Sonia Flew, which is set to go into previews Tuesday and formally open the following Friday, is a play by Boston-based Cuban American playwright Melinda Lopez.

It tells the story of Sonia, a Minneapolis mother whose son announces that he’s joining the Army, post 9-11. The shocking news opens old wounds for Sonia, who was sent to the United States from Cuba on her 15th birthday and never saw her parents again.

Although it’s a fictional story, the play is based on the historic exodus of some 14,000 Cuban children in the early 1960s in what became known as Operation Pedro Pan.

Arnaz, the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, is starring in the play with her daughter, Katharine D. Luckinbill, a University of Miami student. It’s Arnaz’s fourth Grove Playhouse production and her daughter’s first.

“It would be a tragedy if this play didn’t get to open in Miami,” Arnaz said. “This is the best show I’ve done since I have been down here. The worst thing to do is not to let this play open and that the playhouse would stumble on its 50th anniversary.

“I don’t think so! This is not going to happen!”

Herald staff writers Brett O’ Bourke, Tere Figueras Negrete and Michael Vazquez contributed to this report.

—–

Copyright (c) 2006, The Miami Herald

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Unknown:BCD,