While many of the nation's theatres are struggling in the wake of the current economic downturn, Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre, America's oldest continuously operating theatre, continues to flourish. Founded in 1809, the Walnut is both a link to America's theatrical past and a blueprint for future organizations. Under the ownership of the Shubert Organization from 1941-1969, the Walnut became known as one of the nation's leading pre-Broadway tryout houses, hosting productions ranging from "A Streetcar Named Desire" with Marlon Brando (1947) to "A Man for All Seasons" with Paul Scofield (1961). Purchased by the Haas Foundation in 1969, the Walnut served as a performing arts center hosting programs by other organizations until finding itself on the brink of bankruptcy in 1982. A search was instituted for a new director and, in 1983, the foundation hired Bernard Havard from Atlanta's Alliance Theatre to become the Walnut's producing artistic director. Beginning with "$2 million [referred to by Havard as a 'divorce settlement' from the departing foundation], a dark theatre, and no mailing lists," the theatre embarked on a five-show subscription season. An immediate success (the 15,000 subscribers that first season more than doubled the original goal), Havard has for the past 20 years followed his strategy of giving the audience what they want to make the Walnut the world's largest subscriber house with over 56,000 subscribers.
With 80% of the theatre's $12 million operating budget coming from ticket sales, Havard puts programming above all other concerns. Unlike other artistic directors who often bemoan the restraints placed on them by the subscriber system (such as the inability to extend a hit show), Havard says that he is "willing to go to any length to program material that appeals to them [subscribers]." Believing that a theatre's failure to maintain its subscribers is a direct result of poor programming, Havard explains that while he has a "responsibility to lead an audience to a certain degree, if you are not prepared to listen and nurture your audience, if you lead them too far and become too detached and selfish, you will pass a point where you are not able to renew those subscriptions." The strategy has led to the occasional barb from local critics regarding the Walnut's penchant for commercial fare, but Havard remains undeterred. "If you are not able to provide subscribers with sufficient psychic return—entertainment, enjoyment, whatever you want to call it—you are going to fail."
A case in point is the Walnut's current production of Harley Granville-Barker's "The Voysey Inheritance." Admitting that he "may have gone too far" in his choice of Granville-Barker's 1904 play about social responsibility, he blames himself that a percentage of the audience was leaving early during the preview performances. "It's like running a church and seeing your parishioners walk out before Communion," he explains, clearly disheartened. "There's an essential failure when that happens, and it's your fault because you misread the situation."
Havard takes the theatre's successes and disappointments personally. Serving in effect as both the Walnut's managing and artistic directors, Havard explains that when it comes to the key decisions, "the buck stops here on my desk." Giving the impression of a man with a head for business and the soul of an artist (he got his start as an actor and director, the latter a role he still practices from time to time), Havard's accomplishments include ending the "departmentalization" of the Walnut's seven unions (no longer is the Walnut required, in his words, "to use two men to move a music stand with a light on it") and the opening in 1985 of the Independence Studio on 3, a 90-seat theatre two floors above the 1,098 seat mainstage.
Describing the intimate space as "necessary to counter and complement the work on the mainstage," it has also served to satisfy the grant-giving foundation leaders who, Havard says, "view our work on the mainstage as not [being] worthy of their support." Used to premiere new and progressive works, the studio has become a testing ground for many young local artists, who are often given the opportunity to cut their teeth as directors, actors, and designers. Explaining the relationship between the two spaces, Havard says, "The essential thing about the theatre is not so far removed from my spiritual experiences. The mainstage is very much about our temporal welfare and the studio has very much to do with our spiritual welfare. You can't have one without the other."
Havard's tenure has not been without controversy, including the Walnut's decision to withdraw this season from the Barrymore Awards, a prize given by the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia for excellence in area theatre. Believing that the award "got away from its original intent," Havard feels that the nominators unfairly penalized the Walnut by equating the theatre's large productions with a lack of "artistic merit." Havard says that this perception of the Walnut as a commercial theatre has also led to difficulties in obtaining subsidies for the not-for-profit theatre. "Just because you are producing 'Annie' or 'The Music Man' doesn't make you a commercial producer," Havard explains. "We are just as deserving of a subsidy from the taxpayer; perhaps even more so, because we reach more people."
With over 300,000 patrons a year, the Walnut was recently identified in a survey by the Pew Charitable Trusts "as the leading entry point for culture in the Delaware Valley." The theatre's influence, however, spreads beyond the Walnut's economic impact in the city (last tallied at over $25 million), but also shows the role the theatre has played in Philadelphia's theatre renaissance. Both the Arden Theatre Company and the Philadelphia Shakespeare Company began at the Walnut 5 (a 60-seat space the Walnut regularly rents out to emerging companies) and, according to Havard, during his tenure the number of registered Equity actors residing in Philadelphia has grown from approximately 150 artists to 785, a trend that Havard says the Walnut played a primary role in. "We've played a major part in establishing this talent pool and providing an economic basis for them to stay here," says Havard, noting that several of Philadelphia's top actors—including Barrymore winners Grace Gonglewski and Scott Greer—got their start at the Walnut.
As for the Walnut's future, Havard considers growth to be essential to the theatre's artistic and economic well-being. To that end, the theatre has recently purchased half of an adjacent parking lot with plans for a new 300-seat in-the-round playing space, an expanded rehearsal area, and more rooms for the Walnut School's 1,000 students. "I've never been interested in the status quo," explains Havard, a statement that one senses bodes well not only for the Walnut's future, but for all those interested in the continued proliferation of the nation's nonprofit theatres.