Not Fighting It
Playhouse Directors Won’t Fight Historic Designation

“We have assembled a reputable team of professionals to develop short-term and long-term strategies.”

The city of Miami recently designated the Coconut Grove Playhouse a historic structure.

By Omar Sommereyns

Moving forward on what seemed like an optimistic note, the Coconut Grove Playhouse’s board of directors announced it was withdrawing its appeal of the city of Miami’s historic designation of the theater’s 1926 Mediterranean Revival structure.

The proclamation was made during a Cocoanut Grove Village Council meeting, Tuesday.

Ridden with debt and in financial disarray, the Coconut Grove Playhouse – Miami’s biggest and longest-running regional theater, which showcased the American premiere of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot back in 1956 – shut down last spring more than $4 million in the red.

Back in 2005, the Playhouse’s directors had been banking on selling the property for $8 million to a developer who planned to raze the building and erect condos, shops and two smaller theaters in its place. The deal between developer Henry Pino and the Playhouse fell apart just before the theater was designated historic in October of that year.

The Playhouse’s promise to not fight historic designation appeased the Village Council, preservationists and devoted theater-goers who had been alarmed about a possible sale and the ultimate demise of a beloved South Florida cultural institution.

Following a preliminary statement from Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who has been pushing for preservation of the building, Shelly Spivack, the Playhouse board’s chair, gave a speech positing the withdrawal decision as a crucial step in the right direction, i.e. toward the reopening of a preserved and better-organized theater.

Michael Spring, director of Miami-Dade County’s Department of Cultural Affairs, was also on hand to extend the county’s support of the theater’s reshaping.

“We have assembled a reputable team of professionals to develop short-term and long-term strategies,” Spivack said. “The goal of these strategies is to address the current financial issues facing the theater, as well as the future of a major regional theater for our community. The work is well underway, but we are still in Act 1 of our story.”

“Part of Act 1,” she continued, “is our focus on addressing outstanding and critical issues in a manner that is supportive of the arts community and the community in which the theater lives. In our discussions with Commissioner Sarnoff, we agreed that one key issue to building support from key cultural and neighborhood stakeholders centers on the property’s historic designation.… In accepting historic designation, we want to signal that – when the time is right – we are ready to move ahead in partnership with the city, the Council and the Historic and Environmental Preservation Board to explore plans for the facility that maintain the character of the building and are complementary to the character of the Grove.”

Spring echoed Spivack’s remarks, speaking about a series of “actions” that will be taken to solve “minor and major issues” affecting the Playhouse, the first of which is the appeal withdrawal. However, both Spring and Spivack remained vague about any sort of timeline leading to the theater’s reopening.

“This is a project that has a tremendous amount of moving parts,” Spivack offered, ambiguously.

“We’re trying to do as thoughtful and thorough a job as possible before [we give you specific dates],” added Spring.

Furthermore, when Village Council member David Collins asked Spivack whether or not people will be reimbursed for the hundreds or even thousands of dollars they spent on tickets for shows that didn’t happen during the 2006-07 season, including Neil Simon’s Waiting for Poppa (which moved to Fort Lauderdale's Parker Playhouse), her response was also unclear.

“We’re trying to reevaluate that right now … the Playhouse has very limited funds,” she said.

Meanwhile, unions representing actors, directors and other theater professionals have said they would not work with the Playhouse and former artistic director Arnold Mittelman because of unpaid expenses and benefits, although Spivack did mention that former staffers who are owed money will be paid.

Since April, the Playhouse’s board of directors has decreased from 35 members to 23 and, according to the Miami Herald, records have shown that all members were aware of the crisis and failed to take any steps to improve the theater’s finances.

As singer and actor Theodore Bikel, who first performed at the Playhouse in Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys in 1973, told the Herald last year, “I saw a theater that was beset by problems that weren’t of its making. It got in debt heavily, even though there was a board that could have done something. They let it fester; then they picked a fall guy [Mittelman].”

Comments? Email omar@miamisunpost.com.