Story and photos by Mary Sheely
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

Alan Harrison is a man with a mission.

More precisely, ArtsWest, the theater and gallery at 4711 California SW, where Harrison is executive director, is an arts organization with a mission – as well as a new production, the Seattle premiere of “Love Song,” which opened tonight.

In fact, the mission, adopted four years ago, is spelled out in detail on the ArtsWest website:

Harrison credits the ArtsWest mission with the organization’s success: more tickets were sold in 2009 than in any year previous. And, like others at ArtsWest, he’s confident that the mission will help ArtsWest overcome recent setbacks. Because although ticket sales were at an all-time high, the revenue they generated still wasn’t enough to cover a drop in donations, which forced the non-profit to cover expenses with their reserve fund.

“The mission is not insignificant for us; we literally talk about it every day,” Harrison says.

“And I don’t use the word ‘literally’ in vain—we actually do talk about it every day.”

The mission informs which plays Harrison and Christopher Zinovitch, the director of theater and education (at left in “Love Song” photo by Matt Durham), along with the staff and board of trustees, select from dozens of new works viewed worldwide each year. It guides gallery director Nichole DeMent’s choices of artwork for the lobby walls. And, Harrison says, it is helping ArtsWest build a fan base.

“Here we are in two years of what is unquestionably a cruddy economy — that’s the technical term,” Harrison says wryly. “And during that time, more people have come here than ever in the ten years we’ve been here in the Junction. And we attributed that to one main thing, and that is that ArtsWest has an opinion and a personality that is distinct in and of itself.”

He recites the mission from memory, then adds, “We require conversation. We could have said we elicit conversation, but that’s passive. We wanted to set the bar higher. So the plays and the artwork on the walls in the gallery are designed to require you to talk about it. The worst possible response to a piece of art is, ‘Well, that’s nice. Now let’s go have dinner,’ and never to speak of it again.”

For those unfamiliar with ArtsWest performances, Harrison is careful to clarify that he’s not talking about shock value.

“Our point is that a community is better served by talking about its issues,” he says. “It’s the most harmless way and most effective way to effect change, positive change. We don’t succeed unless you go across the street after a play to the brewpub or West 5 or any of the restaurants here in the Junction and you say, ‘I gotta talk about that. I gotta talk about these issues.’”

TALKING ISSUES

“And it’s not necessarily a conversation that says you love it,” says actor Nick DeSantis, one of four starring in “Love Song,” which officially opened at 7:30 tonight. “If you talk about it, they feel that they’ve done their job, and I love that.”

DeSantis may be best known for his one-man performance at ArtsWest as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a German transvestite who survived both Nazi occupation and life in communist East Germany, in the 2008 Seattle premiere “I Am My Own Wife.” That play’s subject matter inspired one memorable conversation between Harrison and an ArtsWest patron.

“A donor said, ‘I wish you guys would do more pure entertainment,’” Harrison recalls. “I said, ‘What is pure entertainment?’ My definition of pure entertainment is Vaudeville or Ziegfield Follies — there’s no story, but there’s fancy costumes or million-dollar sets. There’s nothing wrong with it, but that’s not what we do here. And he says that’s not his definition, that there are plays that are pure entertainment. He mentioned ‘South Pacific.’ Well, he couldn’t have mentioned a more perfect example.

“In 1949,” Harrison says, “when ‘South Pacific’ — which won the Pulitzer Prize—came out, here’s a musical that, yes, we all know the music’s beautiful, but there’s an interracial couple, there’s kids out of wedlock, there are men dressing in drag, there are men alone on a beach who are sex-starved and love-starved and talk about it. There’s a lot of stuff going on in ‘South Pacific’ that was probably a big deal in 1949.”

He concludes, “So when you say, ‘Why don’t you do “South Pacific?’’’ my answer is, ‘We are doing “South Pacific.” It’s called “I Am My Own Wife.”’”

SEX, POLITICS AND HUMOR

“They absolutely have gotten bolder in their choice of shows to do,” says DeSantis, who first acted with ArtsWest in 2003. “Their seasons are filled with Northwest premieres, Seattle premieres, world premieres. That is such a refreshing thing for an actor to have that experience.”

“Love Song” is also a Seattle premiere.

“It’s a story of four people, but it really centers around a guy named Beane,” Harrison says, motioning toward the stage set of two apartments, one of which consists of a chair, a lamp, and little more.

“To say he lives an austere life doesn’t even come close,” Harrison says. “And he lives this way on purpose.”

Beane’s chosen life is upended when a woman breaks into his apartment to rob him, “only to find that there’s kind of nothing to rob,” Harrison says. “And he sets up a relationship with her. And on some level, you’d have to say, everybody meets somehow.”

When audiences leave “Love Song,” what conversation does Harrison hope will ensue?

“What we hope will happen — what we plan on happening — is that people will come out of this play and talk about their own relationship,” he says.

As with all ArtsWest plays, there is a connection between what’s onstage and the art curated by DeMent, whom Harrison calls “the most talented gallery director in this city.” Working with Zinovitch, DeMent coordinates a yearly call for artists — one is open right now, in fact — and chooses work that reflects the themes of the plays being produced.

The current art exhibition, ”Drunks, Junkies & Saints,” features artistic interpretations of “excesses and overindulgences” by L. Kelly Lyles and David Peacey. While none of the images are explicit, some depict scenarios that may be best viewed by adults. Generally, the same can be said for ArtsWest plays.

“In this case, it’s sex and politics,” Harrison says of “Love Song,” “but not R-rated at all. And as we discuss these issues of sex, religion, and politics, it’s also not exclusive of humor. I hope that if you come to ‘Love Song,’ you’re going to laugh. It’s funny.”

A POSITIVE IMPACT

An evening at ArtsWest may be enjoyable, but the theater doesn’t just benefit fans of the arts. One-third of playgoers live outside West Seattle, and as Harrison says, “The economic impact of that is remarkable.”

Development director KayLee Jaech explains, “On average, an arts patron spends 20 dollars per person outside of the cost of a ticket.”

That added up to a positive economic impact of $5 million from 1999-2009, Jaech says. ArtsWest bases that figure on indicators that were used in the 2003 Economic Impact Study of Arts & Heritage Organizations for King and Pierce Counties.

“I would say that $5 million dollars is spent here in West Seattle,” says Jaech, “because the people that are coming to ArtsWest, if they are going out before and after, it’s usually in The Junction.”

No doubt a drop in donations in the face of those numbers is discouraging, but Jaech chalks that up to a bad economy, not a bad mission.

“Contributing has decreased for every organization, but especially arts organizations right now,” she says. “Our individual ticket sales are amazing. Our first show of the 2009 season did three times our goal. That indicates to us that our program is right on. We have a good fan base and our mission is a good thing.”

But that doesn’t mean ArtsWest is just hoping donations increase. Jaech lists the steps being taken to cover the 45% of operating expenses, including the Theater Education Program for children, not covered by ticket sales.

One step is “500 @ $50,” a campaign to secure $50 each from 500 people. At this writing, 500 @ $50 is up to 100 donors, 64 of whom have donated for the first time.

“That’s extremely exciting for me as development director,” says Jaech. “It means we are reaching more people and getting them more excited about what we’re doing. Perhaps they’ll come to a show, the gallery, get involved in children’s programs.”

ArtsWest is also in the process of increasing its board of trustees from 14 to 20 members. The board, in turn, is working with a consultant to learn ways to strengthen the donor base.

“I think people are becoming more responsible with what they donate. That has been the trend I’ve seen since 9/11,” Jaech says. “People really are giving to a person, to a program, and not to an organization and then walking away. They want to feel committed and invested.”

STAYING FOCUSED

And that all comes back to the fan base — one that, as Harrison explains, recognizes what is and is not in line with the ArtsWest mission.

“What if La Rustica suddenly started offering kung pao chicken?” he asks hypothetically. “Even if it’s really good kung pao chicken, how would you feel about the restaurant? The truth is, how people would feel is that they wouldn’t trust the kung pao chicken, they wouldn’t order it there, and they might stop trusting the Italian food.”

Harrison continues, “If we started doing experiences that were just play-time or, on the other hand, were just avant garde, suddenly we would lose the trust and expectation level of our fan base. What we hope to do by instilling our fan base with this type of experience you get every time you come here, just like the Italian restaurant experience, is that as fans they will be more supportive when they are able to be.”

ArtsWest fans do come through in an emergency, such as donating enough money to replace the theater’s back door, a casualty of a recent break-in (WSB coverage here), as well as “the security system that we now know was required.” But, Harrison says, “We don’t want to be emergency-based. It makes me crazy when arts organizations pull what I call an Oral Roberts, that whole threat, that whole sort of blackmail, ‘We’re going to close unless we raise $40,000 by next week’ kind of thing.

“Survival,” Harrison states, “cannot be a goal. The reason we’re a non-profit is not that we’re just commercial organizations that can’t make money. We’re non-profit because we’re supposed to be doing something for the community. And that’s what we try to perform.”

“Love Song” runs Wednesdays-Sundays through Feb. 21st; tickets are on sale online. The ArtsWest gallery is open Tuesdays-Saturdays, noon-7 pm; “Drunks, Junkies and Saints” continues through this Saturday.