Arts Patronage and ACT's SEVEN WAYS TO GET THERE

According to The Stranger, Dwayne Clark, a first-time playwright, had a sold-out opening at the premiere of his play SEVEN WAYS TO GET THERE last weekend. The play about Clark's personal experiences with group therapy, was cowritten by Bryan Willis and directed by John Langs.

The opening at ACT's largest theater was attended by CEOs and professional football players. This is amazing attendance for a first-time playwright but Clark is not your average playwright.

Clark is the wealthy founder and CEO of Áegis Living, a family business of high-end eldercare facilities. SEVEN WAYS TO GET THERE might never have played ACT at all without the wealth of Clark and his CEO friends.

When pitching the show, Clark asked how many tickets ACT expected to sell. "They said, 'Well, a first-time play typically sells 50 percent to 60 percent of the show,'" he remembered. "'If we sell 100 percent of the show, we may not break even."

So he made a proposal. "I told ACT, 'I'll take all the risk so there's zero percent chance of you losing money,'" Clark said. "I reached out to 28 of my CEO buddies and said, 'I want you to front-load this, sell out the house, pay double what you normally would, and give the tickets away to your employees.'"

This untraditional approach to producing theater has already payed off for ACT. "By opening night, we had sold 60 percent of the run," said director John Langs. "That's a big number."

Clark believes that more CEOs should should share their life stories through theater. "If you can get more CEOs to open up and be vulnerable-there are some great stories out there-and if they can use their Rolodexes, they could re-create theater," he said. "This could be an opportunity for a new economic model."

This new economic model has actually been around since Ancient Rome. The system of wealthy people being able to commission works of art is known as Patronage.

Clark commissioned the play about his experiences from Bryan Willis, chair of the Northwest Playwrights Alliance. It was then brought to Langs and ACT. "We have a contract," Clark said. "I have final authority over how the play looks and everything else, but I tried to let them have theatrical space-there's a lot of theatrics in the play."

This method of producing theater raises a lot of questions. Should wealthy CEOs like Clark be able to buy their way into theater? And should theaters take advantage of these financial opportunites so that they can support other less profitable projects?

Click here to read the full article in The Stranger.