From stage to screen

Hanesbrands Theatre on Spruce Street is usually filled with actors, dancers and musicians performing everything from musicals to contemporary-dance works. But occasionally the activity on the stage pauses for an afternoon or evening. The theater goes dark, but only to a point.

A screen, large enough for many movie houses, lowers from the ceiling, often blocking the set of a stage production from view. Patrons take in live or recorded simulcasts in high-definition of everything from the latest production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York to a performance of a masterwork being danced by the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow.

Or they watch films about the arts, including "Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance," which Alex Ewing introduced at a screening on Jan. 30. Ewing, the chancellor of UNC School of the Arts from 1990 to 2000, also served as the Joffrey Ballet's general director for several years in the 1960s.

"People in Winston-Salem don't get a chance to see these kinds of arts and cultural programs in most cases," said Richard Emmett, chief operating officer for the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. "Now they have an opportunity to see some of the best artists and performing-arts groups performing both classics and contemporary pieces in some of the most notable performance venues around the world."

The arts council owns the Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts, which includes Hanesbrands Theatre, and it has helped fund satellite dishes and other equipment that enables the simulcasts to happen.

Tommy Jackson, a Winston-Salem resident, teaches art to developmentally disabled people. He went to Hanesbrands on Jan. 21 to take in the Met's "Live in HD" production of "The Enchanted Island." He raves about the experience.

"The good part about seeing it in HD is that there are multiple cameras," he said of their ability to capture the action up close and from different angles. "Even if you don't have the best seat in the world, you can see really well. … Nothing beats the live experience of being in the Met. If this is the closest you can get to doing that, it's definitely a good thing."

Ewing has attended several ballet presentations. He had a positive assessment of them.

"I'm quite astounded by it," he said. "I grew up looking at dance films for one reason or another. They were ordinarily not very good. … This has tremendous potential for dance if they can film it well."

Ewing also expressed pleasure with how "Joffrey" went in Winston-Salem, noting that it was shown just four days after its premiere in New York. He said he also likes the idea of people talking to the audience about the screenings that they are about to see, a frequent practice before and after the HD performances.

"The director came out and talked to the audience," he said, referring to what happened after he saw the play "Look Back in Anger" in New York. "It was terrific. … It was totally engrossing. People sat for 20 or 30 minutes listening to him."

Simulcasts such as those in the Met's "Live in HD" series have been around since 2006. The Met aimed to generate revenue from ticket sales and to increase the size of the international opera community. That community is able to take in Met simulcasts in 1,700 theaters in 54 countries; the Hanesbrands Theatre became a "Live in HD" venue in fall 2010, shortly after the Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts opened.

After dance and theater companies saw what the Met had done, they wanted to get in the simulcast game as well. Hanesbrands rode that part of the next wave, beginning to have screenings of ballet and theater in spring 2011.

Although the costs of producing a simulcast are high — the Met's first simulcasts were each reported to have cost between $850,000 and $1 million during their first season (2006-07) — the costs to the council to show the satellite feeds are next to nothing, except utilities and staff time. Since the staff is salaried, there is not much variable cost, Emmett said.

The presentations that Hanesbrands patrons see are either live performances or recorded-live performances. The latter are used for "encore" presentations that follow live ones. Or they are used when a live performance from Europe would happen at an impractical time for local audiences.

At least 180 seats in Hanesbrands are usually made available for a simulcast or film screening. But an additional 70 seats can usually be added. This makes for an intimate and appealing experience.

The prices for screenings at Hanesbrands are far lower than live performances.

For example, a choice orchestra seat for a Met performance can cost more than $300, according to the Met's website. Admission to the next "Live in HD" performance at Hanesbrands, Wagner's "Gotterdammerung" on Saturday, will be $22, $15 for students. Tickets for simulcasts of ballet and theater are in the same ballpark. Seewww.rhodesartscenter.org for more details about "Gotterdammerung" and other simulcast productions.

Although price and the once-rare opportunity of seeing top-tier performances regularly from around the world have made simulcasts an attractive entertainment option for many people, they're not the only factors driving the screenings in Winston-Salem.

Local performance groups see them as a way of growing audiences for local shows and/or keeping patrons engaged between productions. The time between local productions is often lengthy: Piedmont Opera's two productions each year, for example, generally happen in October and March. So the added exposure can be invaluable.

The hosting groups are Piedmont Opera and Winston-Salem Festival Ballet of Winston-Salem. They can make a few thousand dollars each season from hosting. But that's not the principal motivation, said Frank Dickerson, Piedmont Opera's executive director.

"We're not doing them to make money," he said. "We do it so that people can have the opportunity."

Dickerson said that Piedmont Opera made $5,000 from the "Live in HD" screenings last year. The money came from an arrangement in which the Met got 50 percent of the admissions. The arts council and Piedmont Opera split the remaining 50 percent. Winston-Salem Festival Ballet has entered into a similar arrangement.

Dickerson said that he's attracting 125 patrons on average to each "Live in HD" screening. Emmett said that ballet and theater fare less well at the box office. A good turnout for them would see attendance in the 60s, he said.

Dickerson said that it's still "very difficult" to determine the effect of "Live in HD" on attendance at Piedmont Opera performances. But he said current patrons who have seen "Live in HD" have become more loyal to Piedmont Opera and more apt to support the company financially.

"Exposure is exposure," said Gary Taylor, Festival Ballet's artistic director. "Every opportunity we can have to have exposure can help us."

Emmett also said that the screenings of simulcasts and films can create a "meeting point" for working artists and arts instructors to gain inspiration or to simply learn about what's happening in their art forms around the world.

"A lot of times you're siloed in your institution," he said. "You don't get a chance to interact. It's a place where people can gather to share interests and possibly create new connections and ideas in their art forms. It's another way to stoke the fires of arts in our community."