Hartford Business Journal

20 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | NOVEMBER 29, 2021 Arts Biz By Frank Rizzo Special to the Hartford Business Journal Days after the pandemic shut down theaters last year, the executives of Connecticut's leading performing arts centers did something rare in the arts and entertainment industry: They were talking to each other in significant and wide-ranging ways. "Before this, we worked independently," said Frank Tavera, CEO of the Palace Theater in Waterbury. "One good thing that came out of COVID was the fact that we were now all talking to each other about the future." Tavera said there had been some previous collaborations by "The Big Four" — which also included The Bushnell in Hartford and New Haven's Shubert and Stamford's Palace theatres — but mostly in regard to lobbying efforts for annual line-item funding from the state legislature, now totaling a combined $784,000 for those institutions. But this was the first time the foursome invited Torrington's Warner Theatre and New London's Garde Arts Center into the room — or more accurately, into the Zoom — and so the loose group became a larger and formal organization with a new name: The Connecticut Performing Arts Centers Coalition. New executives The reach out from the top theater executives couldn't have been more welcome for the two new leaders who had just been hired and faced a unique challenge. Rufus de Rham began his job as executive director of the Warner Theatre in Torrington just a few weeks before the institution had to close due to the pandemic. Anthony McDonald was also new on the scene, arriving on the week of the shutdown as executive director of the Shubert Theatre — and becoming the first Black man to head a major presenting house in the state. "Coming into a new environment and having that kind of camaraderie allowed me to one, get to know these gentlemen, and two, get to understand the nuances [of the field]," McDonald said. "We really do not look at each other as competition but as colleagues." The COVID crisis brought everyone together in new and far- reaching ways, the execs said. "We were the first enterprise to be shut down completely [in March 2020], and after a few weeks realized, we would be probably one of the last to reopen and that we would need some financial help," said David Fay, president and CEO of The Bushnell for the past 20 years. Lobbying and marketing campaign In the months following the shutdown, the six execs worked collectively to maximize state and federal funding, presenting themselves as the largest not-for- profit venues that drew audiences from every region of the state. But it wasn't just about lobbying for funding. It was also about marketing, technology, programming, bulk purchasing and, most pressing CT's six presenting theaters form rare alliance to promote, safeguard arts industry Anthony McDonald Frank Tavera is the CEO of the Palace Theater in Waterbury, one of the presenting houses that joined the recently created Connecticut Performing Arts Centers Coalition. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED

• Cover