Speaking of special occasions:
Coming Attractions
Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts at six
Sunday, November 20, 2005
BY DAVID N. DUNKLE
Of The Patriot-News
The Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts arrived in Harrisburg like a war hero, with church bells ringing, music playing and a story filled with drama and derring-do.
"They had a wonderful party for everyone," recalled Maurinda Wingard, executive director of Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. "It was an amazing theatrical event -- big people on stilts with all kinds of costumes, amazing food and lots of performances, of which we were one. There was a lot of glitz."
Six years later, the party atmosphere has died down.
The center's backers are basking in their successes -- 86 percent of midstate residents know about the Whitaker Center, and 61 percent said they or their children have been there -- but they are also taking a hard-eyed look at the future.
From the beginning, Whitaker's combination of science museum, performing arts and an IMAX theater defied expectations. When it opened, some thought the brownstone-and-glass complex was an architectural mismatch in downtown Harrisburg. A Patriot-News columnist described it as "ugly" and "prisonlike."
Those criticisms have died off.
"People have gotten used to how it looks," said Rusty Baker, executive director of the Susquehanna Art Museum, who calls the design "awesome."
But challenges lie ahead. What Mayor Stephen R. Reed has called "Harrisburg's crown jewel" had a tough year in 2004, losing nearly $815,000.
"There was an overall softening in all of the various sources of income," President and CEO Byron Quann said. "We had a lower number of school district visits, our gift total was lower, we had less appreciation on our investment income."
Operating revenue -- money from such things as ticket sales, the museum store and parking -- has settled in at about two-thirds of the center's need.
With an annual budget of $6.6 million, that's some $2 million in gifts and grants needed each year.
Quann said efforts are on track to eliminate the deficit within a year. But science center attendance is down. Resident companies are struggling with their own finances. And officials are trying to increase the center's endowment to $20 million.
The real drama at Whitaker these days is backstage, and it's about money.
Blockbusters:
The center became known for its core offerings -- the science center, live performances and IMAX theater -- but recently has discovered a new weapon: the big event.
The first was 2004's CowParade, in which local artists painted 136 Fiberglas cows as a public art project. Rustling those cattle was something of a coup for the center because the event had been licensed mainly in major cities such as Chicago, Atlanta and Las Vegas.
Many of the full-sized cows still dot the Harrisburg area landscape, including "The Sunday Cowmics" in front of The Patriot-News office on Market Street.
The project was popular and profitable, as the cows were auctioned and miniatures were sold in the Whitaker Center museum store. CowParade generated $223,000 in net income and funneled $54,500 to 42 local nonprofit groups.
"We sold a lot of cows," Quann said.
The cows were followed this year by "Titanic: The Artifacts Exhibit," a scaled-down version of an exhibit that has toured large cities.
The 52,000 people who visited "Titanic" hailed from 30 states and 50 Pennsylvania counties. Each paid $5 on top of the usual admission, though an undisclosed portion of that $260,000 went to the exhibit's owners.
"What it tells us is that if we have something good that people can't see closer to home, they will come here," Quann said.
Plans are under way for another event next summer. Officials are keeping the idea under wraps, but Quann said "that certainly is critical for us."
Static electricity:
Whitaker's three-floor Harsco Science Center is a descendant of the former Museum of Scientific Discovery in Strawberry Square. It uses interactive exhibits, labs and actors to explain scientific principles to youngsters.
The science center has remained largely unchanged since opening day except in the Gloria M. Olewine Gallery, which features three or four exhibits a year. The current offering is "Grossology, The (Impolite) Science of the Human Body."
Thousands of school-age children pass through the science center each year, a product of contracts with area school districts. But the number of visitors has declined recently.
About 13,000 schoolchildren visited Whitaker in May, the busiest month for school trips. That's down from more than 16,000 in May of 2003.
"We have 240 static exhibits in the science center and they are fine," Quann said. "But you do run the risk that attractions could become familiar to everyone."
Steve Bishop, the science center's new vice president, is heading a review of all exhibits. "We will be asking, 'Does this still work? Is it still fun?'" Quann said.
A makeover probably will cost between $1 million and $4 million, said Whitaker board president Mark G. Caldwell. It would be a major upgrade for a science museum that brought in just under $600,000 in 2003.
Stage business:
Some of Whitaker's most public bumps in the road have involved the Sunoco Performance Theater.
The 664-seat theater is shared by the center and eight resident companies; their relationship has sometimes been fractious. In 2003, a promotional agreement between the center and WITF left out the resident companies, and some complained that they were being pushed aside.
"We were the backbone of Whitaker Center when it started," said the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet's Wingard at the time. "This feels a bit like a betrayal. If Whitaker Center is not going to promote its own residents, I'm not sure what real benefits we receive or why we are even there."
"The honest truth is, the resident companies often find themselves in competition with Whitaker," added Tom Hostetter, artistic director of Theatre Harrisburg.
Since then, the center has made an effort to work more closely with its companies, and those complaints have dwindled.
"We are extremely happy to be at Whitaker," Wingard said recently. "Whitaker has really worked hard to market the resident companies, and we appreciate that."
"We love being the resident theater company," agreed Theatre Harrisburg executive director Dominique Flickinger.
If relations with the local companies have improved, revenue from the Sunoco theater is limited.
Not even the largest company, Theatre Harrisburg, can consistently sell out the auditorium. The center brings in a full schedule of popular acts -- standbys such as Arlo Guthrie and Dr. John, younger names such as Dar Williams -- but they are limited by the size of the house.
A hit production, "Menopause, The Musical," played to sellout crowds for five days this summer. More seats would have meant more ticket sales.
Raising ticket prices could drive up revenue, but might also reduce attendance. Quann and others said tickets for most events are priced about as high as they can go.
Increasing the number of shows is another possibility, but prime weekend spots are mostly taken by the resident companies, which get first choice on dates. The theater is already busy, offering about 240 performances in 2004, according to Stephen F. Krempasky, Whitaker's vice president of theater operations.
Pleasant surprise:
The biggest surprise has been the IMAX theater. Like so many aspects of the Whitaker Center, the IMAX was a controversial addition.
"I actually questioned the wisdom of an IMAX," said Lucy Miller, founding director of Market Square Concerts. "I was glad to be proven wrong on that."
The 200 seats, giant-screen theater has turned into one of the chief attractions and moneymakers. More than half the people who enter the center attend an IMAX film, and the cinema offers more than 2,000 shows annually.
In 2003, the IMAX brought in about $937,000 -- less than the $1.2 million generated by the Sunoco theater but more than the science center.
Those numbers are likely to rise following the center's recent upgrade that allows the IMAX to show first-run movies. "Charlie and The Chocolate Factory" did well this year and "Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire," which just opened, is a potential cash cow.
Growing the nest egg:
While popular programs are essential, officials said, the best way to ensure the center's long-term future is to grow its endowment. It had remained under $5 million until a $5 million gift from the Whitaker Foundation roughly doubled it last month.
Officials have just launched a campaign, "Excellence and Innovation: The Next 10 Years at Whitaker," that sets new priorities. Chief among them is increasing the endowment to at least $20 million.
Until that time, the center will remain beholden to the generosity of the black-tie crowd. Patrons such as Lois Grass have come to the rescue more than once.
Grass, a Harrisburg resident and longtime supporter, put up $80,000 to purchase a so-called "diva shell" -- a backdrop of acoustic panels that improve stage sound.
In today's economy, organizations with too-small endowments feel the pinch. Philadelphia's Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, for example, posted a $2.2 million deficit during the past fiscal year and laid off 12 percent of its staff. The Kimmel has a $25 million endowment.
Whitaker Center has a significant advantage over Kimmel -- its $53 million building in downtown Harrisburg is paid for, which means there is little debt.
While the Kimmel opened in 2001 with a $30 million debt, Whitaker officials initially chose to focus on paying off the building rather than worrying about an endowment.
Now that has changed.
"If things stay as they are, we are going to have to continue to come up with that other $2 million [every year]," board president Caldwell said. "Endowment dollars can be used to fund our operating shortfall."
Still, Grass said the endowment goal is a long-term approach.
"The endowment will start to build when people start to die and leave us in their wills," she said.
Track record:
Expectations were huge for the center when it opened on Sept. 9, 1999.
It would be a marriage of arts, science and cinema.
It would be the premiere performance venue in central Pennsylvania.
And it was supposed to spark an economic revolution in downtown Harrisburg.
The center already has achieved many of the goals set for it six years ago.
It has provided a stage for the arts and has become one of the midstate's best-known venues. Some 2.5 million people have attended events there in the past six years, and Whitaker has played a significant role in the growth of Restaurant Row -- the three dozen nightclubs and restaurants clustered around North Second Street.
Reed estimated that the center has had an economic impact of $138 million in related jobs, spending and taxes. A recent Whitaker Center marketing study placed that number at $200 million.
"We placed high expectations on Whitaker, and those expectations have been met," Reed said.
Mark Caldwell seemed to be summing up the center's past and voicing a hope for its future when he said, "It's hard to imagine Harrisburg today without Whitaker."
DAVID DUNKLE: 255-8266 or
ddunkle@patriot-news.com
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