Brick

Copy­right 2010 Ben S. Pollock

DATELINE MIRTHOLOGY — I grabbed a take-out cof­fee from Com­mon Grounds and headed across Fayetteville’s Dick­son Street to the rose gar­den of the cur­rent Wal­ton Arts Cen­ter. I sat on the ter­raced brick wall, wait­ing for my client-friend Crys­tal Britches, and shiv­ered. The flower bushes were faded, match­ing the mood.

“Hon’, it just turned win­ter. Let’s take the cof­fee back inside,” Crys­tal said, walk­ing through the gate. She had a cup, too.

“In a while, Boss. This amphithe­ater gar­den helps form my thoughts about the Fayet­teville munic­i­pal audi­to­rium mov­ing. Will you be warm enough?”

Crys­tal Britches grinned. Under her infa­mous plas­tic gear, she wore woolly gray leg­gings and a red Razor­back hoodie. Ms. Britches is a Fayet­teville mil­lion­aire. Though opin­ion­ated, she’s more of a watcher than a joiner. She is remark­ably fit for her age, from ball­room danc­ing. Under the radar I advise her on jour­nal­ism and pub­lic rela­tions. Her phil­an­thropy is known only to non­profit admin­is­tra­tors as she gives anony­mously. Her ego is not depen­dent on being seen in news­pa­per or local mag­a­zine Soci­ety Pages. This is a the­ater col­umn so let’s call it a pref­er­ence to work behind the scenes.

“Noah Vale, I’ve been away since Thanks­giv­ing, but I have been keep­ing up online with the town the­ater and how it’s going to move to Ben­tonville. The Fayet­teville City Coun­cil vote last night clinched it. The offi­cials and the uni­ver­sity say it seems unseemly, if legally cor­rect, to sue a vol­un­teer board of direc­tors, but it’s the indi­vid­ual direc­tors that intim­i­date them. It only makes sense if you don’t think about it.”

“I know. The city and UA, tax­pay­ers and pri­vate con­trib­u­tors, all four teamed up to build the com­plex of three the­aters, gallery and teaching-studio, give or take 20 years ago. The Wal­ton fam­ily was the naming-rights main bene­fac­tor. The area’s pop­u­la­tion has been mov­ing north toward Ben­tonville, but more than that the power is up there. That makes mov­ing the cen­ter nearly inevitable.”

“It’s ironic, though, Noah. Ben­ton County is so con­ser­v­a­tive. What would be more hyp­o­crit­i­cal than a pub­lic per­form­ing arts facil­ity up there? The­aters haven’t been run on a busi­ness model in decades; not even exec­u­tives often could afford tick­ets with­out under­writ­ing. And the res­i­dents may not appre­ci­ate how so many of the shows fea­ture danc­ing girls, dirty jokes and cuss words.”

“Or it might be right up the Repub­li­cans’ alley. Crys­tal, I thought you would’ve flown back from the Riv­iera for the fight. Fayet­teville has legal ground, public-record doc­u­men­ta­tion. At the least money should trade hands. And where are peo­ple going to eat before shows up there, then buy desserts and drinks afterward?

“Fayet­teville just a cou­ple of months ago opened Iams Dog Park off Wed­ing­ton Drive. I take Mani the Tibetan ter­rier there. It reminds me of how Fayet­teville acts. The dogs play, sure, but they’re really fig­ur­ing out dom­i­nance. Mani chases after some dogs, not oth­ers. It’s not based on size but aggres­sive­ness. Between the WAC and the School Board’s anti-growth choice to stay with one large high school and not two medium-size dynamic ones like the other three main cities here, Fayet­teville through­out seems to be rolling on its back, expos­ing its belly.”

“Mr. Vale, build­ing an audi­to­rium twice the size of this will take them five or 10 years. If Wal-Mart Stores moves ‘cor­po­rate’ to Dal­las, the cen­ter may not be fea­si­ble any longer. They won’t do that, of course. Wal-Mart may be a multi­na­tional cor­po­ra­tion, but when it gives its word it stands by — sorry, hon’, some­times I can’t help myself.”

“The­aters may not be much of a busi­ness, but they can be run with effi­ciency,” I said. “The ques­tion is how many nights a year does an audi­to­rium need to be rented out to approach a break-even. You can fill a 2,200-seat audi­toirum with a Wed­ding Singer or Young Franken­stein for a two-night run sell­ing most tick­ets at $75, in pros­per­ous North­west Arkansas, or four nights in the cur­rent 1,200-seat house right here. They didn’t bother to open the bal­cony a few weeks ago for author Bill Bryson. I guess that’s the kind of show that will stay in Fayet­teville, oth­er­wise, he’d be put in the lobby of the pro­posed digs with 600 fold­ing chairs.”

“There might be more peo­ple on the Wal­ton Arts Cen­ter board of direc­tors than attend some of their shows,” Crys­tal cracked. There’s two boards, together with nearly 30 mem­bers. The size of the staff makes the facil­ity one of the biggest employ­ers downtown.

Crys­tal laughed. “If all they want is the room for cir­cus acts, let them show Legally Blonde every year and Cats. Fayet­teville still can host in the cur­rent hall David Sedaris and other monolo­gists, and Chick Corea and the other jazz greats, and Sec­ond City improv, and Pilob­u­lus and other dance troupes.”

I pat­ted the red bricks. “Yes, even if this one gets renamed Wilber­force Arts Cen­ter. I would drive to Ben­tonville for Blue Man Group. And eat at a chain restau­rant up there,” I said.

“Son, I love The The­atah. But I love YouTube and Net­flix, too. Stage per­for­mances are like the news­pa­per indus­try. They’ll be around in some form for­ever. They seem to be gear­ing toward ever-more-exclusive mar­kets and priced accord­ingly, but even that is no cer­tainty. The Britches house­hold sub­scribes to your paper — my ser­vants, after they clear away my break­fast and start the laun­dry, split the sec­tions then trade — but I pay only for three months at a time.

“I’m a War­ren Buffett-like investor. A build­ing lasts a long time, and you can’t turn an audi­to­rium into a real-estate office when the nov­elty of near-arena-size per­for­mances wears off and bene­fac­tors look to other projects to glo­rify themselves.”

“Crys­tal, as one of your con­sul­tants, I advise you to look at the bright side. Dick­son Street now won’t need a park­ing deck, so down­town metered street and lot park­ing that started last sum­mer to pay for one, to hold the­ater crowds, now may be yanked.”

“There is no such thing as free park­ing,” Crys­tal Britches said, rais­ing her fist, “except when there is!”