Last month, just as the news broke that 600,000 more Americans had lost their jobs, a group got together in an old building-supply warehouse in downtown Dexter and did something that under the circumstances might seem a little reckless. They opened a theater.
“It’s surprising, yeah, especially during these times,” says Dexter native Paul Koch, who with his wife, Anne, has been a driving force behind the Encore Musical Theatre Company. “I know a lot of guys that aren’t working.”
Even more surprising is that in its first weekend, the Encore sold out the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night performances of Evita, starring Broadway actors Dan Cooney and Jessica Grové and a cast of local performers. On the strength of the turnout, the Kochs, producer Michael Sawaya, and Cooney himself—who is also the company’s artistic director—decided to extend Evita’s run by three performances. When Cooney announced the decision to the crowd at Sunday’s matinee, people roared.
The Encore, it seemed, had wrought a small economic miracle. No one really knows why hundreds of people would spend $25–$28 apiece to see a musical on a bleak February weekend in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Depression. But everyone agrees it’s a good thing—especially for Dexter.
“It’s exciting,” says Dick Lundy, a Dexter resident and member of the Encore 100, a group of donors who’ve contributed $500 or more to the theater. Lundy hopes that Encore can do for Dexter what the Purple Rose Theatre did for Chelsea—help the village prosper while retaining its “small-town charm and feel.”
The launch of the 126-seat black-box theater in an alley just off Main Street brought a small flood of business to local establishments who’d been watching their sales slump. The upscale Bistro Renaissance opened its dining room on a Sunday night for the first time during the theater’s debut weekend, and tables filled up. On show days, the restaurant offers a 15 percent discount to Encore patrons.
Local eateries and shops also got a bump during the three-month lead-up to the theater’s opening when cast members and construction workers—who were often the same people—spent whole days and nights in Dexter building the Encore and rehearsing Evita.
If it sounds a bit like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in Babes in Arms, that’s because it is. With the kind of passion that fuels PTO car washes and amateur softball leagues, the Kochs, Cooney, and Sawaya dreamt up the idea of a Dexter professional musical theater in 2008 and staged a fund-raiser to see if anyone would support it. Cooney’s friends the Gatlin Brothers played, and more than 400 people showed up. It was enough to convince the foursome to move ahead.
Over the summer they located a building—an old storage facility previously used by a casket company and Dexter Builders—and last fall they began constructing the Encore. Volunteers came “out of nowhere,” says Lundy, to transform the empty warehouse.
John Sartor, a former Equity actor who runs a tile business out of Dearborn, built the sleek gray restrooms—and played Juan Perón in Evita. The Robertson Morrison company donated a heating and cooling system worth $40,000. Sawaya says in-kind contributions to the Encore—including three months’ free rent from the landlord—easily reached $200,000.
The cast of Evita included unpaid local actors and the two professionals, Cooney and Grové, both of whom donated their salaries to the theater. Cooney wants to expand the Encore to 189 seats and make it a fully professional house that draws on local and Broadway talent—like the Purple Rose, except the Encore will specialize in musicals. Five more are planned for the 2009 season, including Guys and Dolls in April and Little Shop of Horrors in June (see Events, p. 25).
Whenever his schedule allows it, Cooney will perform at the Encore. He’d also like to teach workshops in acting—maybe as soon as this summer. This spring he’s on Broadway in the new Dolly Parton musical 9 to 5, but he’ll be back in Dexter on his days off to oversee the Encore.
No one can quite believe how successful the company has been with its inaugural run, but everyone is delighted. “It’s one of those feel-good things,” says Frank Johnson, the owner of Robertson Morrison and a supporter of the local arts scene. “In these times you need to have something to stand back and feel good about.”
