BORNSTEIN: Theater company aims for balance

Published November 3, 2007 at midnight

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Changing the sign over the building is the least of what Steve Tangedal has in mind.

It's also the easiest.

After several tumultuous years during which the Theatre Group's programming slowed to a crawl and veered to a slate heavy on drag and comedy, Tangedal is trying to pull the group back to its glory days.

At 37, the Theatre Group is arguably the oldest gay theater in the country - although it hasn't always been a gay theater. The company began its life as the Lakewood Players. Tangedal joined in 1979, three days after he moved to Denver, and was instrumental in changing it to a gay company in the early 1990s as Amendment 2 became a hot-button issue.

After losing its rental at Theatre on Broadway this summer for financial reasons, the group is re-establishing itself in the Phoenix Theatre, 1124 Santa Fe Drive, which it owns and will rename Theatre Off Broadway.

The group has planned a nine-show season that includes some serious fare along with the mascara and boas.

So what changed? A number of things, among them:

• The casino no-smoking ban goes into effect Jan. 1, and Tangedal hopes gamblers return to Denver's bingo halls when they can't light up in the mountains.

In 2006, Theatre Group made $95,000 off the bingo game it has long run, nearly half the company's budget.

"The profit for this year was zero," Tangedal says. "They went to the mountains. They've told us that once the smoking ban takes effect, they're not going to go up there."

• Losing Theatre On Broadway meant losing a massive $12,000-a-month rent payment.

The group pays only $3,000 a month for the Phoenix, and that's a mortgage payment. Fewer bills mean more money to produce shows.

• The company has to produce at the Phoenix. Theatre Group presented lesbian- and woman- themed shows at the space, but they never sold as well as the gay men's shows, so the company began renting out the Phoenix.

Its most consistent tenant, Paragon Theatre, is moving to Five Points. Other potential tenants, such as Vintage Theatre and Next Stage, also found other homes. If there is to be any income, it will be from the Theatre Group selling tickets.

Although the new season includes such meaty fare as Edward Albee's The Play About the Baby and Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey, it's larded with the costume-centric Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly and a month-long fundraiser next December called The Great American Beauty Christmas Pageant Telethon.

Part of the goal is to return to a scheduled season; for most of the past decade, the company ran shows as long as they would go. Tangedal wants to restore the subscription package, despite the fact that theaters around the country are moving in the other direction.

To wean himself from bingo, he also has stepped up the development end, with three volunteers currently pursuing grants. Tangedal, who draws a salary, says he has maxed out his credit cards to keep the company afloat.

Some (particularly this critic) have lamented the dissipation of a theater that once brought challenging, intriguing material on gay themes to the city into one that seemed content to flash buns onstage.

But Tangedal points out that those late, lamented shows such as Shakespeare's R and J were some of the company's worst sellers.

Lips Together, Teeth Apart and The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, he says, each brought in fewer than 200 viewers during their entire runs.

"It was entertaining," Tangedal says. "I think Debbie Does Dallas affected people because they laughed."

Theatre Off Broadway

• The one-time Theatre Group is changing the name of the Phoenix Theatre and offering its first full season in years, including: Tiny Tim Is Dead; Jeffrey; The Last Session; The Play About the Baby; Howard Crabtree's When Pigs Fly; The Gay Deceiver; Dracula; The Great American Beauty Christmas Pageant Telethon; The Who's Tommy

bornsteinl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5101

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