Roxy’s Downtown ready for its close-up

John Hammer is convinced that the rebirth of Roxy’s Downtown – launching Friday with the holiday musical “Plaid Tidings” – was something that was serendipitously meant to be.

For one thing, Hammer says, the timing couldn’t have been better. Back in May when Cabaret Oldtown, Wichita’s popular downtown performance space for the past 22 years, quietly went on the market, he finally realized that, even though he loved the company he worked for, he had burned out on the corporate rat race.

“I’ve always been more of a creative type than a corporate guy, even though I learned a lot of valuable lessons about making large things happen through long hours with a creative team and using healthy competition to find innovative solutions,” says Hammer, a Wichita native and set designer who pursued a career with 3-D software company Autodesk, which helped make such movies as “Avatar” and “How to Train Your Dragon.”

“But I was feeling overwhelmed without much opportunity for a social life. I was Googling early one morning when I saw that Cabaret Oldtown was for sale, and I knew it was something I had to do,” Hammer says. “I called Monica (Flynn) to ask if it was a crazy idea to leave my job and start this.”

Flynn, a longtime friend and founder of Wichita Children’s Theatre & Dance Center, told Hammer: “It would be the wrong thing to do to let it go.”

Flynn called some of her friends and supporters, and suddenly Hammer had partners – along with Flynn – in his new venture: Larry and Sharla Michael and Charlotte Hays. The Michaels and Hays say that they don’t have theatrical backgrounds themselves, but that their interest was sparked when their sons got the acting bug as kids in Flynn’s troupe.

“We were backstage parents,” Larry Michael says. “Our son performed all the way through college and into dinner theater for a couple of years before doing something else. But it stayed with us.” Sharla Michael even became tour manager for Flynn’s touring productions for 21 years.

Hays says her son eventually left acting in favor of a music career, but she, too, has remained a theater fan. “Why do I want to do this? Because I’m insane,” Hays jokes. “But I believe in John’s (Hammer’s) vision. I’m not just nostalgic about this place. I loved what went on here, but I wouldn’t have done it myself. John convinced me.”

Hammer’s vision is to provide small-cast, off-Broadway book musicals as a main show Wednesday through Saturday nights, but also to offer a secondary, one-person showcase or experimental performance on Sundays and Tuesdays. Mondays will be available for private parties or corporate retreats.

Owners also plan to install a drop-down screen and digital projector for screenings of art, experimental or special films, with plans to tie in with the Tallgrass Film Festival.

And daytime use of the space would be for educational purposes. Hammer, who teaches digital arts at Wichita State University twice a week, wants to partner with educational or business groups for workshops to train the next theater-oriented generation.

“We want to be more than a theater. We want to be in use constantly. We want to be a true arts center,” Hammer says. “We also want to be instrumental in the new downtown. We feel that downtown is ready to take off and we are going to be right in the center of it.”

Mediterranean Grill will cater the first show and will be the primary caterer for special events. Owners say they are determined to use locally owned vendors and suppliers to support the community.

Another innovation on the local theater scene is that Roxy’s Downtown will be coordinating its schedule with other local theaters to maximize performance opportunities for local actors. The first step was an agreement with Mosley Street Melodrama in the nearby Old Town entertainment district because it has a similar year-round operation. Cabaret Oldtown founder Christine Tasheff, who is back as Roxy’s artistic director, is behind the cooperative agreement.

“We have so much great talent here, we want them to be able to work full time rather than have to take a second job,” Tasheff says.

Without schedule coordination, actors have to weigh which theater to work for, sometimes going five or six weeks without a performance opportunity, Tasheff says. With Roxy’s and Mosley each scheduling six shows a year to run about seven or eight weeks each, Tasheff says it made sense to coordinate so performers can move from one theater to the next with very little down time. Tasheff met with Mosley Street owner and longtime friend Patty Reeder over lunch one day and sealed the deal as a win-win-win for both theaters and the performers.

The theater at 412½ E. Douglas opened in the 1970s as Roxy’s Downtown to be an adjunct performance space with the recording studio founded by Sheldon Coleman for his Big Dog band. The club attracted guest gigs from musicians like then-fledgling jazz artist Harry Connick Jr.

When Roxy’s closed a few years later, Tasheff was alerted to the possibilities of the space by her sister and brother-in-law, Marni and Rich Vliet, owners of the popular Looking Glass restaurant beneath the theater. She launched Cabaret Oldtown in 1992 and operated for the next 12 years, producing, directing and occasionally performing in musicals like “Beehive,” “Six Women With Brain Death” and “Always, Patsy Cline.”

Tasheff sold the theater to Kansas-born Broadway tour veteran Christi Moore, who had decided to settle down to raise her son. Moore added original musical/comedy revues as well as occasional cult musicals like “Evil Dead: The Musical,” “The Rocky Horror Show” and “The Great American Trailer Park Musical” and operated for another decade. Moore, whose son is now in college, sold the theater to Hammer and his group this summer.

Since taking possession in August, the new owners have plowed about $70,000 into renovations, turning the dated 1980s teal-and-burgundy color scheme into a sleek Art Moderne palette of grays and taupes with black, white and crystal accents. They purchased four chandeliers and plush dining furniture from a defunct Denver restaurant. They configured seating for 170 at booths and cabaret tables on three tiers.

On a less glamorous note, they jackhammered out the cracked and leaking bathroom floors and installed new tile floors and fixtures. They hand-applied chic black-taupe-gold treatments to accent walls and stall doors.

The piece de resistance is the restored neon Roxy’s Downtown sign over the alley entrance half a block off Douglas, now expanded with more neon and a metal awning.

The five owners say each has an official title for day-to-day operations, like “manager of human resources” (Sharla Michael), “merchandising and bookkeeping” (Flynn), “facilities and operations” (Larry Michael), “beverage and food” (Hays) and “president and CEO” (Hammer). But what it all comes down to, they note, is a lot of sweat equity: “Meaning a lot of cleaning and painting,” says Hays. “We wanted to get the best look for the least cost, so we did a lot of it ourselves.”

Adds Flynn: “We want to be a boutique theater that’s comfortable and classy and where every actor would love to work.”

The opening show is “Plaid Tidings,” the 2001 holiday sequel to the popular 1990 off-Broadway musical revue about a 1950s close-harmony guy quartet denied their big break by an untimely traffic accident. They are mysteriously summoned back from the spirit world for another chance. The first half of this jukebox musical features vintage standards like “Three Coins in the Fountain” and “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing” while they ponder why they were brought back. When they find out, with a little help from Rosemary Clooney, the second half provides a showcase for holiday classics like “Let It Snow” and “Joy to the World.”

“Plaid Tidings” runs at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday.

Also on this grand opening schedule is a double feature of “The SantaLand Diaries” and “Cindy Summers’ Christmas Garland.” The former is a comic one-man show performed by David Stone, based on humorist David Sedaris’ misadventures as Crumpet, one of Macy’s elves. The latter is the local song stylist’s holiday program performed as Judy Garland, Patsy Cline and Karen Carpenter.

This duo runs at 7 p.m. Sunday and 8 p.m. Tuesday through Dec. 21.

This story was originally published November 21, 2014 at 2:47 PM with the headline "Roxy’s Downtown ready for its close-up."