Park Square opens one more horizon

"We're putting a new theater on the market," Richard Cook said last week as he took a visitor through Park Square's Boss Thrust Stage. "It's not a black box or a lab. It's a real theater."

This weekend's preview opening of "The House on Mango Street" culminates a $3.5 million project many years in the making. With 203 seats, the Boss Thrust adds a space roughly as large as either Mixed Blood or Penumbra and is bigger than the Jungle. It has allowed Park Square to increase its annual budget by 48 percent to $3.4 million and program 18 shows this season.

Those numbers put Park Square in new territory for midsize Twin Cities theater companies. Cook hopes that Park Square will sell about 96,000 tickets this season to both stages — including nearly 40,000 to the Boss Thrust — and employ 293 artists.

"This project gives us a whole battery of assets we never had before," Cook said, referring to the stage, a spacious lobby, rehearsal hall that can be used for play readings, new dressing rooms and gallery walls.

During the tour of the new facilities, we came upon director Dipankar Mukherjee, who was about to start a rehearsal run-through of "Mango Street," Amy Ludwig's adaptation of Sandra Cisneros' 1984 coming-of-age novel. Set in Chicago, the story follows a Latina growing up, and the love-hate relationship she has with her neighborhood. MuKherjee was glad for the attention but he chided a visitor, "I hope you are talking about the work on the stage also and not just the stage itself."

He first directed "Mango Street" in a 2012 staging by Pangea World Theater and Teatro del Pueblo. Park Square is essentially presenting that production.

Dream grew larger over time

The new Boss Thrust has been a long time in coming for Park Square. "We've had the designs in the can for three years," Cook said. The theater once was envisioned with 140 seats, but a longer-than-expected gestation period allowed Cook to rethink the plans.

"It's bigger and nicer than we thought," said C. Michael-jon Pease, Park Square's executive director.

Actor James A. Williams, who was meeting with Cook the day a visitor stopped by for a look, walked through the theater and said over and over, "This is going to be hot. I am looking forward to this."

Williams is one of four artistic associates at Park Square who will be given the new stage for an evening, no strings attached. He said he wants to bring in young performers — spoken-word poets, dancers, actors — and fill the space with youthful energy.

"Let's play for a while and see what we can do," said Cook, commenting on the artistic associate shows.

History Theatre artistic director Ron Peluso congratulated his downtown St. Paul theatrical neighbor.

"Park Square's new stage is a big plus for St. Paul and it will help our continuing mission to bring people downtown for art and commerce," Peluso said.

New audiences, partners

To feed its bigger budget, Park Square assumes most of the higher revenue will come from increased sales on the three-legged stool: subscribers, schools and single tickets. The first two appear to be on target. The wild card is the single-ticket buyer. "There are no guarantees, but we have put a lot of thought into it," Cook said.

Park Square's biggest season audience with just the upstairs proscenium stage was slightly under 62,000 in 2010-11. Projections for this year are 56,000 for upstairs.

Park Square is using a model similar to what the Guthrie did when it moved into its new building in 2006, inviting other companies in as partners, and presenting shows. This helps it spread risks and costs, as well as opportunities.

Cook has announced partnerships with three other companies. In addition, several shows that have been around a while will come in. Cook mentioned "Trick Boxing" by Brian Sostek and Megan McClellan and "Two Sugars, Room for Cream" by Shanan Custer and Carolyn Pool.

"We can't build 18 shows from scratch," Cook said.

The space will be used extensively. Cook has scheduled 60 performances of a 90-minute adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet" for school audiences early next year. It will run in rep with another show in the Boss Stage, while upstairs in Park Square's 350-seat theater, two other shows will also be sharing time. On some rare days, Park Square will be doing five performances in a single day, with a capacity of 1,300 people.

Where to go from here?

Park Square began as Variety Hall Theatre in 1972 with productions in an 88-seat walk-up theater in St. Paul. Artistic Director Paul Mathey restarted the troupe and renamed it Park Square for the building that housed it. Cook came on soon afterward, and led the eventual move to the Jemne Auditorium in St. Paul and then to the current Hamm Building space, which used to be Actors Theatre of St. Paul.

Park Square will look for other ways to get its brand in front of people, Cook said. Pease has advocated for the company to take shows on the road, across the river to Minneapolis or around the state of Minnesota.

"I'm not anxious at all," Cook said. "I'm excited. I'm thrilled that it's going to work so well — as a fun place for us to produce, but it's also neat to be a hosting place for all kinds of gatherings."

Now, he just has to wait for the people to come.

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299