I spent a good bit of time in the morning having coffee with Shane Hudson, the associate director of development at Playmakers Repertory Company here in Chapel Hill. I first went to a performance at Playmakers in 1989 and it was great to talk about the theatre and hear about many of their new initiatives. They've got an aggressive 10 show season underway and just opened a rotating set of Well and The Glass Menagerie.
Shane's an engaging guy and I really enjoyed the time. He's got his own area arts blog called Theatre North Carolina. And if he didn't have enough going on with his dayjob, he recently became the editor of the Raleigh edition of Broadwayworld.com. Check out both if you get a moment.
Lunch time was fun as well. Linda Charlton, the director of marketing at the Durham Performing Arts Center, and I had an excellent discussion and meal over at Rue Cler (highly recommend the L'escalope de Saumon).
Jennings had the good fortune to work with DPAC on their launch campaign this past fall which I'll talk about in a future post. My hat's off to Linda, Bob Klaus and their team. They have had nothing but blockbuster success since they formally opened the doors in December.
In a year when a lot of venues are struggling, DPAC has seen packed houses for most nights and just finished up a great run of RENT, which the local pubs loved. Rent crackles with wit and wisdom
Rent was the first show in their Suntrust Broadway Series. They've got Oprah Winfrey's The Color Purple, Legally Blonde the Musical, and Fiddler still to come this spring.
And soon DPAC will announce their 2009-2010 Broadway schedule. It's headlined by Wicked and Linda says the rest of the shows are going to really blow the doors off. So if you live within driving distance of the Triangle, look for that announcement coming in March.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have to get to the gym to work off my meals.
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