(gentle music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Working Capital" is provided by the Friends of KTWU, and Go Topeka.

- On this episode of "Working Capital," we travel to Salina, Kansas, where we take a look at the Stiefel Theater, and see how this almost century old theater has maintained itself and actually created itself into a bright new vibrant cultural landmark here in the middle of Kansas.

(upbeat music) Welcome back to "Working Capital."

Today we're in Salina, Kansas at the Stiefel Theater, and this place is amazing.

It's almost 100 years old.

It's gone through a few phases of its life.

It was mothballed for a while, but its latest incarnation has just been so grand for the community for Kansas.

And today with us, we have Jane Gates, Executive Director of the Stiefel Theater.

So welcome to "Working Capital."

- Thank you so much.

- Such an amazing facility from the new sections you've had to put in with it, but just the castle-style theater you have here, just give us a brief rundown on the history and how this place first started and how we got to where we are today.

- Well, thank you first of all, this is so great to have you out here.

We love Topeka.

It's our third biggest market, actually.

I love what you all do.

So the Stiefel was started and opened originally in 1931.

And it was really a labor of love from a man named Mr. Watson who owned the land.

And he traveled a lot to theater, especially in Chicago.

And it was his dream to create a beautiful theater, the likes of which you would have to travel to like Chicago to see.

And he got together and leveraged local business people.

I think they all put in around $5,000, and I think for just around $430,000, this was built.

- Of course 1931 dollars.

So we're talking a million or two our dollars these days.

- And so I think it's a fascinating story though.

They went to the Bowler Brothers architects in Kansas City.

It's a palace theater.

And there's just an incredible attention to detail and design.

But little did they know in 1930 as this was being built, that 100 years later, we would be presenting these amplified shows and major tours that come through.

It really is phenomenal because the room was built with incredible acoustics.

But all that happened in the beginning was that movies were shown here, but it really was, it was actually one of several downtown movie theaters.

It was the first building to have air conditioning when it opened.

And just like these great movie houses in that era.

That's how it started out.

It was eventually purchased by Fox, and then eventually Dickinson Theaters, it operated for many years as a movie theater.

And many people who come here for shows will have memories of coming here as a kid to movies.

It was mothballed in 1988 by the city.

And at that time, Dickinson Theaters owned the building.

It's my understanding, they gave it to the city for $1.

The city bought it for a dollar.

And the city of Salina, one of the great things that they did for the theater at that time was to repair the roof.

And I actually learned from Lyle Lovett that the roofs are what destroy these historic theaters.

And so with great vision, the city repaired the roof first.

And then the theater mothballed from '88.

And then around the year 2000, local citizens kind of knew the grandeur and the treasure that this theater was.

And a number of people got together and raised money to do this renovation.

And that in itself is really a story.

- Another community effort, just like the first time around.

So I mean, a lot of community support to keep a place like this open and running and in the beautiful shape it is now.

- And it's not that it was without bumps in the road, but there were people that were incredibly passionate about making this theater new again.

One was a man named Norm Yankee, who really came in and oversaw the renovation himself.

I think he gave a couple years of his life and was down here all the time.

And they got it renovated and started out, opened in 2003, raised a lot of money.

And Bill Graves, who was one of the governors of Kansas from here, I remember hearing that he was involved in this renovation.

So I got involved in 2003 in terms of the branding and marketing and just getting the theater open.

And they booked five or six shows and opened up.

And so it was amazing.

We're an independent venue.

We were not owned by the city.

A 501C3 nonprofit was established.

And it started.

And so in those early years, I remember just not having very big budgets.

They weren't doing very many shows.

They started off kind of with a more traditional performing art center.

- More of a community- - Yeah, like Academy of St. Martin's of the Fields and the Vienna Choir Boys and so forth.

Well, I had come out of the Smokey Hill River Festival, I'd worked for them for many years in graphic design, marketing illustration.

And then I was asked to come over here and get involved as this theater was starting.

And one thing led to another.

But it was tough those early years.

And we all know, you know in Topeka, anybody knows with these historic independent venues, it's tough to get them going.

- Because you get the infrastructure fixed.

But you're still, as the marketing person, you're creating the mystique or the life around the building that you're trying to project again.

So how hard was it to build that new image?

- I just remember those early years and I was responsible for buying the advertising, creating graphics, like coming up with a postcard, whatever, like, okay, we've gotta sell Hal Holbrook.

And they did have the traditional season model in the beginning.

So they got four or 500 local people, which wasn't bad, we had 1,265 seats.

And so the first couple years, they were selling four or 500 tickets sometimes to these shows, but they just could not break even.

And I know like Topeka, like you guys have TPAC, you have Jayhawk.

I mean, we've got these great historic theaters in the state.

People ask me a lot, like how has the Stiefel done this?

I mean hopefully what I'm sharing will help other communities.

But what happened then, which is sort of wild looking back on it, is that I'd come out of the festival and the festival was booking strong acts, and that's kind of where I kind of learned the whole presenting model.

But I watched as I was doing marketing for that, like, if you booked somebody like Little Texas or Bela Fleck, like people just flocked in.

And it's very simple.

And so the initial directors that they had here for one reason or another, they hired one guy that had run the Olympics, and he was not, you know- - Vision wasn't jiving.

- He was just expecting larger budgets than I think the Stiefel had.

One thing I didn't mention that I need to mention is that the Stiefel name came from the generous Stiefel family as they were doing the renovations, and it was called the Fox Theater, the Stiefel family put in enough money to put the renovation over the top.

It's terrible to forget that.

So that's how we came up with that name.

So early on, there were still donors questioning whether this was gonna work.

And we all relate to that, right, with these historic theaters?

Well I get involved and I kept telling the director, like she would say to me, "Well, we wanna book a cowboy."

And I'd go, "Okay, Michelle, it's country, like you call it country."

And I don't know, it just got so silly after a while, but they asked me if I would consider applying for the Executive Director position.

And so, I mean, at the time, my kids were old enough and in college, et cetera.

And it felt like a challenge.

I was passionate about music and art and design.

My husband's a huge music fan.

And I think that I thought, after seeing how gorgeous this theater is, and I just was stunned the first time I came in here.

I thought like, they just need to open this thing up and take advantage of these tours that are coming through here anyway.

And one of the things, another thing that the Stiefel has is a board of directors that was comfortable with risk.

And show me how often that happens.

- Not very often.

- So we kind of just all got together and I said, I got hired, I had vision.

I said, "You gotta just do these cool shows."

Like you gotta start doing the shows that people wanna see.

Like we're Salina.

Like if they need to go see Academy of St. Martin's in the Fields, send them to Kansas City.

But like we just need to do the cool, fun shows that are coming through.

It's just so simple.

- It took a new vision.

- And at that point, I think they were desperate, honestly.

And I said, "Let's just book some shows."

And we had a little bit of money left from the renovation.

We booked Louis Black, we booked BB King, we booked some shows and they sold.

I mean, I remember the board would say, "If we book BB King, do you think it'll sell?"

And I'd be like, "Well yeah, it's BB King."

I remember thinking to myself, "How do I know this?"

But I just know this, it's gonna sell, it's BB King, and there's no better place to see a concert anywhere.

So it just worked.

Now there's been a whole lot to figure out.

We're still figuring it out.

But that's really how it happened.

And then I had to start forming relationships with agents that we were booking through in a very tenacious way.

I had to start saying, "I'm gonna send you pictures.

You need to see this venue.

It routes perfectly with Denver, with Kansas City, with Topeka, with everywhere, like Omaha.

We're right here on I-70.

Like you've gotta give a show a try here."

And we just started to book one show.

Then we booked another show and they would sell.

- The ball was rolling and it just perpetuated itself.

- Like I just started to find like, well, I went to the conferences, I found the agents, I looked at the rosters, and we would take advantage.

Like if Omaha or if Oklahoma is booking Styx at a casino, I got to know that agent.

I would be like, "Give us the Thursday.

What do we have to pay?"

Fortunately, I'd go back to the board.

They just kinda let it happen without micromanaging.

And so we booked Styx and we paid probably half of what the casino paid, but it gave the tour another day.

Well that's a win-win for them.

So you see what I mean?

The whole thing just kind of has led to where we are today.

- Almost serendipity, the way things had to come together.

Some different visions to begin with.

But once you had the vision you're in now, a new roadmap.

I mean, this place is just rocking.

And if you've seen any of their social media, seen any of their posts, the artists that come through here are magnificent.

And there's reasons why they come here.

And when we get back from the break, we'll find out a little bit why this place is so special and why these artists love coming here.

So stick around.

You're watching "Working Capital."

(upbeat music) To watch more episodes of "Working Capital" or any of your other favorite KTWU shows, type in www.watch.ktwu.org or scan the QR code.

Thanks for sticking around.

You're watching "Working Capital."

We're back in the Stiefel Theater.

And now we have Kent Buess joining us along with Jane Gates.

And Kent is the Technical Director here.

Now to both of you guys, along with the renovations on the main theater side, a lot of what helps attract these bands is what went on in the back side of the house.

So tell us how this came to be and how the renovations back here affect bringing in those bands and all the other events you have here.

- Well, when the theater renovated, they bought the building next door, and that allowed us to have phenomenal dressing rooms and green room, and a loading dock.

So it's really kind of a big deal for the Stiefel.

And then not only that, when we received Star Bond funding in Salina, we upgraded our sound system to a very exquisite, wonderful sound system, D&B V system, as well as put a lot of money into the lights and the ringing.

And then Kent can speak to the caliber of the stagehands.

But it is a lot of work just getting the writers for these shows, looking to see what's required, and working in advance to plan them out.

It's very complicated.

And then the shows happen.

Hopefully you're prepared.

The stagehands come in, you load in, and you take it from there.

- And really, I mean, to let you guys know, full-time here, there's only four people working running this huge facility.

Now they do have other part-time crews and all that come in, but there's just four of them here pulling in these kind of groups.

So Kent, what kind of crews do you pull in when there's a show coming in?

What's the load in, load out like?

What all do you use here?

- Well, we have several people who've been trained across the years, both in audio and lighting.

The nice thing about our crew is we do just about anything.

So if a band comes in, they need somebody on audio and somebody on lighting, and if they need to switch people up, then we can accommodate that.

And a lot of that goes back to the previous Technical Director, Bill Tuzicka, who did a lot of the training of a lot of these individuals.

And some of them were old students of his in school.

So we've had a lot of history and a lot of ability to train these guys on how to run the equipment, how to load it in safely, load it in carefully.

And it's nice for the crews that are coming in with a show because once they realize they're dealing with a professional crew, then they can relax a little bit and not worry about whether their equipment is gonna be taken care of.

- So I mean really, the experience here isn't just for the performers.

You're making it memorable and kind of easy for even the crews that come in because the crews do most of the work for these performers on a day-to-day.

- Yeah, and if they can come in and it's an easy day for them, then they're happier.

That kind of rubs off on the band too.

- More likely to come back and maybe their managers are connected to another group.

So I mean really, you guys have just snowballed this into something just so big.

- A big part of what we do is catering and taking care of these bands, feeding them.

So very big part of our success here.

- Do you think you would be this big without your facilities in the back of a house, without the new green rooms, and without those spaces, could you pull these bands in here?

Because I know a lot of towns, they have these old theaters, but unless they have something next door to hook into- - I think that they make it work depending on the dates and the tours and how they're routing.

I mean a lot of the bands need the dates, but I think it helps us a lot.

- What I've found is that they appreciate being able to come into a facility that has state-of-the-art equipment.

Lots of bands tour with their own equipment.

But many of them don't.

The ones that do sometimes will look at our equipment and say, "Well you've got as good as stuff as we've got."

- We'll just patch in there.

- We'll just use your stuff.

And so that makes it easier on them.

Again, they don't have to take as much stuff off the truck.

It doesn't take as long for them to get in.

They're happier.

And they're being taken care of.

So that's a real nice part of the renovation that we did with the Star Bond grant is we completely went to an LED system with lighting overhead.

So we have all of the color changing capabilities and some of the moving capabilities and things like that that we didn't have before.

We were still able to accommodate a wide array of needs for bands.

But now we're a little bit closer to what they're expecting.

So that's really nice for them.

- What's the biggest project you've had to put on for a band in there?

Like what's the craziest setup you've had to have in this space?

- Earth, Wind, and Fire is probably the biggest thing that we've put in here.

That was three trucks or five trucks, in the parking lot.

- That's a pretty big touring crew.

- And seven tour buses.

- That was hilarious.

- There were 28- - And a lot of members of the band.

- Oh my.

- And almost as many on the crew, plus all their equipment.

- They were so nice too.

- It was a good day.

When we were looking at it to begin with, it was like, how are we gonna fit all this in?

- And I'm booking the shows, like going hey.

Now in all fairness, these guys see the writers before the show is booked.

And only once have we wanted to do a show and we just simply couldn't do it.

And that was the Moody Blues because they had to have this front truss, right?

But there have been other ones you guys might have been a little grouchy about maybe like, what was she thinking?

I told her this was gonna be really hard, but it always turned out okay.

And then, you know, like Kenny Rogers, I remember it was just fine, and I was like, "I knew it would be fine."

You guys always make it work every time.

- We did a production of "Ring of Fire," which is a Johnny Cash musical.

And their technical people walked in and said, "Oh, well we'll have to play this by ear."

And they left half a million dollars worth of lighting in the parking lot because they couldn't fit it in.

- Oh my gosh.

- So they took our rig and adapted it to their plot.

The poor lighting designer just was having fits.

- Were they used to more like a big metal truss system in some of these newer venues not coming into a beautiful- - Well that and 60 feet of depth, which we only have 20 feet of depth.

- It used to be that we would have, I mean we've been doing this like this format for 18 years, but it used to be in the early years that you would land a big name and then you would kind of hear band members or crew just like, "Where are we?

What are we doing in Salina, Kansas?"

And that doesn't happen as much now.

I mean, we got the Theater of the Year nomination with the ACMs last year.

And people know about the Stiefel now.

I feel like we're just kind of this destination regional theater that people, I think they know about us.

But it was funny in the early years because like I remember when we had Harry Connick Jr, and that really wasn't that long ago, but I remember one guy in his band was like, "What in the hell are we doing here?"

I remember Harry said, "Just hang on.

You're gonna love it.

It's an amazing room."

Like when we had Tony Bennett, he put his mic down and he sang without the mic.

And the tour manager told us he has not done that in like several years.

- That tells you how good the acoustics are in the place.

- But Tony Bennett was so funny.

At 5:00 I got a message too saying, "Hey, Tony and his wife wanna go across the street and have dinner at Martinelli's.

Can you make that happen?"

So it's just funny how Kent's taking care of all the technical, but I'm making sure everybody's happy and fed and the runners are here and taking care of them and all.

And they're all just hanging around downtown and shopping, and they're all just like nice normal people behind the scenes.

- It takes a well-oiled machine.

You guys have put a crew here.

- It is a well what these guys do is amazing.

And really I think if you didn't have a really competent technical crew, and the fact we knew to put the money into the equipment in the auditorium, like that speaks volumes to a band looking at your venue and then they see what you have.

Oh, well they have this, they have these lights.

Well these guys are serious.

So that's another thing about if you wanna be a serious theater, I mean, I felt like you wouldn't even get looked at if you didn't have the better stuff.

- So one of the cool things I think here too is you guys are independent.

So you're not connected to anything else.

You're making your own money off of ticket sales, off of who you bring in.

- And donors.

- And donors.

Of course donors are huge here.

But also with all these shows, it's not like you're planning to sell out every show.

You don't have to sell at every show to make the the tickets to make the money.

- Some shows we only expect three or 400 people.

- You'll cater it smaller depending on how intimate you want the show and what the performers want the venue to be.

So tell me about how you can adapt a little bit to each show coming in.

- Well, I mean, if we've booked the Wood Brothers and it was an opportunity to get that band, and they've been in Denver and it's a perfect thing for them to just come through Salina, we've given them an extra date and it's like a Tuesday night.

Well then we just get together with the box office in April here, and we go, "We think we have a shot at selling 400."

We'll kill all the tickets in the balcony.

All of them in the back.

And sure if it sells more, we can open them up.

But originally, the goal is to have, you wanna have everybody together, and then that's fine.

It's fine if you only have 350 people at a show, as long as they're all grouped together.

- You increase the life together- - You don't want people spread out all over.

Then it looks like oh wow- - The performers, they live off of that life from the audience.

- You wanna just keep it positive and have everybody together.

- And they feed off the energy and the energy in the room is very palpable.

Because it's an old acoustic hall.

I mean, it's made for that.

It's not necessarily made for the types of stuff that we put in it.

But the audience response is something that the artists can really, really feel on stage.

- Another thing is, I'm really picky about DB limits, and I put a 95 DB limit into every offer that I write.

- That's actually good because a lot of people, the music can get a little too loud.

And you want people to keep coming back.

- It's still loud, but it's not bad at 95 for the most part.

Most people, I mean, every now and then, you get somebody upset about that.

- Again, it's energy.

That helps not only the audience participate, but also the band.

And if it's at a tolerable level for everybody, then that makes things much much more enjoyable all across the board.

- Well, we got about a minute left.

So you already have some fascinating history here.

Things going on right now are fantastic, but what do you see for the future?

- I think that we will continue along this path.

And I don't see a lot of changes for us as far as increasing how many shows we're doing.

I think we're at probably a good number of about 40 shows.

I mean, we're just always working to make sure that the marketing and the ticketing system we use and things are just done well.

I'm always on the lookout for shows.

And I think I mentioned to you I'm on the board of Mid-America Arts Alliance.

I'm really passionate about what theaters like this do for communities.

So I think as independent venues are sort of fragile, you have to make sure you have built up your support.

And I think that the track record we have and just continuing to do what we're doing and find ways to connect more with the state, the people that are coming into our shows, is certainly a goal.

- Well this is such an exciting venue, and I wish you all the best of luck in the future in bringing in these great acts.

- Thank you so much for coming, you guys.

I so respect what you all do so much too.

- Well thank you.

- Thank you very much.

- Well I hope you've all enjoyed learning more about the Stiefel Theater in Salina, Kansas today.

And if you wanna learn more about any past businesses, make sure you log on to watch.ktwu.org.

Thank you for joining us today.

You've been watching "Working Capital."

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Working Capital" is provided by the Friends of KTWU, and Go Topeka.