Have playhouse and regional theater had their final curtain?

If the county’s aim in using $23 million at the Coconut Grove Playhouse is to return regional theater and its historic building, the plan fails on both counts.

The county plan would not revive a dead theater’s presentations but instead bring in a small substitute now active in Coral Gables. It would not restore an historic structure but merely affix what remains of the façade and bits of the interior onto a multi-use project.

That truth brings us to two key questions that decision-makers must answer candidly for the public before they go further:

Can or should either or both big-purpose objectives – cultural growth and historic preservation – be achieved? Or should the historic building housing regional theater become a place where we can never go home again? 

The county plans to move GableStage, a high-quality independent theater group of limited appeal, to larger quarters married to Florida International University. We would not regain a regional theater. Will the new interim president of Florida International University, Kenneth Jessell, be on board with that?

The plan also would not restore anything but would create a 300-seat theater with an old façade where the historic 800-seat regional theater stands and add parking, more stores and offices in Coconut Grove.

GableStage, which would move from tight space in the Biltmore in Coral Gables, is a fine niche company that either would have to change its thought-provoking works of limited appeal to please a far wider audience or have trouble filling 300 seats. 

And, if it did shift to more popular fare with big-name stars to fill more seats, it might find a 300-seat theater too small to pay the bills. 

Either way, it’s not a gain of another theater company.

As for the building, little true preservation is planned for a crumbling landmark that fewer and fewer of us remember as time goes by. The longer the vintage 1927 building vacant since 2006 rots, the less remains to preserve or restore.

The county plan would enliven a corner of Main Highway in the Grove but could by no stretch be called regional theater, just another of several small theaters sprinkled around. Proponents of a true Coconut Grove Playhouse have a much larger regional vision.

Vision is wonderful. Reality may be different. But if the county sees reality as a 300-seat GableStage in the Grove, it is giving up on a grand vision.

The county could instead pay to restore a true regional theater with enough seats to produce impactful productions. But where would funds come from to keep it going? Good as Coconut Grove Playhouse was with big-name stars and directors in its best years, from time to time it failed to pay its bills and eventually it crumbled, closing abruptly in 2006 with some bills still unpaid.

The county plan has the advantage of income from commercial development on the site to support a theater. Succeeding even with that funding would take strong fiscal management – the old Coconut Grove Playhouse failed to control spending by artistic leaders to fit the budget.

A parallel is Miami Marine Stadium, now vacant three decades. Supporters aim to restore it to its old grandeur, but even if they can pay to restore it, what is the formal plan for its use and where will funds come from to keep it open?

Even restoring the stadium was easier in word than deed: Tomás Regalado upon election as Miami mayor made restoration his main goal. He left office eight years later. We are still waiting

Now his daughter, county Commissioner Raquel Regalado, has inserted herself in the playhouse debate with the aim of solving problems that have kept the project at a standstill. Can she do better at restoration and reopening than her father did?

Whether big project or small, leadership is key. Joe Adler, artistic director who made GableStage a key to the county’s playhouse vision, died in the interim. That company’s strength in an era of covid has yet to be tested.

As city and county fight in court, with the city opposing the county’s playhouse vision, supporters of full restoration claim county voters overwhelmingly approved raising bond money for just that task. In fact, though written promises sought to persuade voters, the ballot question itself did not detail what was to be done.

As for content, regional theater good enough to lure South Florida residents to its seats would benefit not only Coconut Grove but the entire county. Miami-Dade does not have theater of that stature now.

Granted, other venues are big enough. The Arsht Center downtown and the county’s South Dade arts center have the size. Sadly, they do not regularly have regional theater fare. Shows, yes. Music, yes. Ballet, yes. But theater, no.

When Coconut Grove Playhouse every season lured subscribers and busloads of condo dwellers from around the county, it produced quality theater with well-known directors and stars.

Those theatergoers also filled nearby restaurants before and after shows. Every production was a local bonanza. If the theater could be replicated as it once was, so could that bonanza.

But, can it be replicated? Just as Coconut Grove is no longer the small artistic community that housed the theater, the county and society changed. Those busloads of patrons were from a different condo world than we have now, older and unified, who hungered for a night out together. That’s gone.  

Those buses also eased a parking crunch, with 50 people to a vehicle. That too is gone.

Moreover, when the playhouse filled 800 seats nightly it was the only cultural game in town. We now have multiple other venues. Even discounting lingering covid impacts, it would take expert marketing of high-quality fare to fill 800 seats night after night.

That’s not to say it can’t be done. Miami-Dade’s population has changed. A playhouse might count on newcomers who have experienced quality theater and hunger for it. 

Enter the recent executive tax flight from New York and the Northeast. This rapidly growing audience, new since the county created its plan for a GableStage shift to 300 Grove seats, could tip the balance in the ability to support broader regional theater.

After all, the 1987 book celebrating the first 30 years of the Coconut Grove Playhouse was titled “Broadway By The Bay.”