Following the announcement in December that Court Square Theater in Harrisonburg would close at the end of 2025, several organizations gathered to keep the theater open for the foreseeable future. The Harrisonburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority, which owns the space, agreed to take on the financial responsibilities, while the ACT ONE Theater Company will operate Court Square Theater over the next year. I asked JP Gulla, ACT ONE’s executive director, why they stepped in to run the space.
JP Gulla: It's funny because in November, the beginning of November, the end of October, we had just signed an agreement to do The Little Mermaid in the space. And that show would have opened up in February, which it will. And at the time, when we heard about the news, we were like, what? And then we were like: “okay, well, there's got to be ways that we can kind of help here.” You know what I'm saying? So that was like our first initial: “what are we going to do?” And then, of course, I received several emails, several phone calls, several messages, text messages. And then we were like: "All right, we need to go ahead and see what we can do to be able to not only help save our production, but the space for the community." And that's kind of how it came about. A bunch of community leaders got together. From that meeting, we were like, okay, Our ACT ONE will go ahead and we will, we will, at first it was supposed to be 3 months. We will sign a lease for three months. But what we found was three months is not a lot of time. I mean, when you're thinking about, okay, so you have to get a business license, you have to do this, you have to do that. And there are people who have things going on, events that are scheduled in April, May, June, July, August. Then it kind of turned into more of a year thing, which we were comfortable with because at the end of it, you know, it wouldn't change what we were doing. It would actually help the housing authority and the community to be somebody who can help manage the space.
WMRA: You had managed Court Square Theater for several years and are no stranger to the operations. As an organization, though, I am curious, how might this be a new undertaking for ACT ONE? And are there any challenges that you're running into that you could talk about?
Gulla: Oh, you know, yeah, so I think that as a theater company, which is what we are, I think it works extremely well with a program of ACT ONE. Okay. There are not challenges when it comes to doing productions and doing live theater and doing entertainment. I mean, we're still, I mean, we have a bluegrass concert coming up on the 14th of February, right? Like, so we're still doing all those things. I think that it just shifts a little bit of our board's focus and what we were doing with mostly educational theater for adults and children to now more a community production company, right, that produces other things, concerts, et cetera, and now does things possible. Like we're looking into movies and how that's going to be and what that looks like. So, if the community comes together and they say, okay, we would like to do this, I think that ACT ONE can do this. We've done it for years, I've done it for years. And so, my focus with that space was programming the theater for the community. And now it's simply programming the theater for the community again, just underneath a different ownership, like not ownership, but management. So, I think we listen to what the community says and understand what the needs are of the community because the theater has to service and serve the community, right? And so, when we find what that is, then we understand, okay, well, how is that now going to be produced? How is that now going to be, is it going to be an organization that's created to run the space? Is it going to be ACT ONE is just continuing to do what they're doing and then from there grow those programs for this space? Like what does it look like? And then That's what we do, right?
WMRA: What specific pieces of information are you looking for, like from the community here?
Gulla: Well, I think, I have been through several different surveys, being with that space for over 10 years and doing things with that space for that long. I have been through a lot of different searches for the quest of what's going to happen in the space, right? And what that looks like. I think to us, it's, to the community right now, it's, okay, so what do we need to do to kind of keep the momentum of the theater going, right? If that's a number of committees that help with the program of it, if that's a number of companies that come together or an organization that's created or more board members that are there to be able to make it work for our community, then that's what it is. And I mean, we can have people that come together and say we want movies. We want live theater. We want concerts. We want master classes. We want, you know, master classes for musicians. I mean, we want, you know, singer-songwriter competition. I mean, these are all things that have been said before and have been done before in the space, and I have done them, right? And so, at the end of it, I think that those things are going to come up again. It's not about what we want. It's about how we can do it. Right? And that's the biggest thing. And I'm on several boards and I'm executive director of this and I run several businesses. And the biggest thing is it's not about talking about it. It's about doing it. And so, when we need volunteers or we need people to do it or we need programming in there, we need to reach for our community and reach out to them and say, hey, let's do it, not just talk about it. And who's going to do it? Because right now, I'll tell you one thing. ACT ONE is running the space. The other organizations that want to do stuff, there are, I don't, I have not seen them at all, right? Like, so we're talking about things and we're talking about doing things, but there's one company, one program, one entity who is running it. And we would love more people to be involved with that, right? And I think those are the meetings, too, that we have to talk about, like who's going to run the space? Because a performing artist is a performing artist. They're not necessarily a producer. And so that's one of the biggest things. And luckily, I have the background of two sides of my brain with my Master's in Business Administration and my MFA in acting and directing. And so, like for me, like I have two sides of the brain. Like I understand how to perform, but I also understand how to market and produce that to get it to production so that people are there. And sometimes that whole circle effect has to come around in a circle. It just can't be, okay, well, let's just do this show. Okay, let's do a show. Let's do this movie, but nobody comes to see it, you know? You need to kind of think about, okay, you also have to keep your lights on, right? So that's a little bit on my end of it.
WMRA: You mentioned, films being something that is probably going to be a new thing for ACT ONE to think about going into the next year. So how is that fitting into the plans for Court Square? What do you all run into there?
Gulla: I'm very blessed that I know all these numbers, but movies cost money. They come into the tune of about $25,000 in expenses. You have a projector. You have to have that serviced. It has to run a certain amount of time so that it doesn't break down on you. You can't just turn it off for three months and then turn it on again, right? And then on top of it, you have warranties and you have a booker that you have to pay to book your movies. You can't compete against the same circle of movies that Regal Cinemas is going to have. Because that's all a bid system. And you have to literally have the whole theater closed down for nothing but movies in order to bid against a Regal Cinema. And seriously, and you have to have a blacked out calendar just for movies. And you have to run them four, three, four times a day. And so, there's a lot. So, our movie theater would kind of fit into like a B movie or an indie flick, independent film kind of series. And so, we worked with a booker up in New York who was great because he managed and booked several other theaters that did what we did. And so, he would know what was on the fast track for a great movie to show. He would also be able to get us some of the newer releases that were indie flicks. And so, but that comes with a cost. And then you pay a booker, and then on top of that, you pay for the rights for the studios. So, you're gonna get something from Sony Classics, you pay them $250 just to have the rights to it. And then you pay them a cut of your ticket proceeds. And the shipping just for the DCP, because our projector is old school. It doesn't have like a digital thing where it comes in from the internet. You have to put in like this big metal, it's called a DCP. It's like a big floppy disk from back in the day. And you put it into the machine and then it ingests it and downloads it. and then it plays the movie. Then there's a key that you get that's electronic that you have to put it in there. It's not real key, it's digital. But the biggest thing is like those type of things cost money. The shipping on one DCP is $50. But when you run a certain amount of movies, there's cost to that. I think the biggest thing in looking for movies is finding what's going to be the most economical choice for our community. I think if there's a sponsor out there that can come forward with a certain amount of money and say, we're going to go ahead and we're going to sponsor the movie series, that allows our community to pay a lower ticket cost, but then also allows our theater to be able to continue doing movies. And that's kind of where the real I guess, way of making it work comes in. Because I'll be honest with you, movies just have never, since I've run the theater, since post-pandemic, have never made money. There's, it's just, we can't compete against the bigger theaters. But what we find is when I was in the role of the director of the theater, I found that in talking with Jeffrey, who was a gentleman who was our booker, and looking at other colleagues of mine in other theaters, they were doing first run movies, but they were also doing indie films too, because their theaters, even when they were doing first run movies, would sit like vacant and they didn't have nobody there. So, they had to do other programming, other things outside the box, outside the box mentality to bring their patrons in to keep their lights on. And so, that's the way that we make movies work. We are researching movies now. We want to do movies. It's about finding the staff to run them. That's another cost in it and making sure that we can do it so that it's economical. And it truly, honestly makes sense to the community to do. Because if it's too much of a cost, then why do it unless you have it underwritten, right?
WMRA: You know, on that note, you know, there are funding changes going into the next year. And I would like to talk a little more about how, like, how you're navigating, funding changes and what possibly could happen in the next year and what that'll look like on the programming side.
Gulla: So, the ACT ONE Theater Company budget is great because it actually pays for what the housing authority needs to work that space. Okay. And so that's kind of a wonderful thing. Like our programming - we do two shows a year that are children's shows. We do adult shows as well. And then we do, and I'm talking about like live performances, productions, okay? When I say shows. And then we also do a whole summer camp program. And those particular programs or things that we do would pay for what the housing authority needs to be able to keep the space open. And that's also one of the reasons why we knew that Act 1 would be okay in signing a lease to take on this new program, so to speak, right? It's a brick and mortar, you know what I mean? Whereas we used to just kind of go to spaces and rent them and lease them and do that and held our camp somewhere during the summertime. So, what we do now is we obviously have a sponsorship tier for each of the programs that we do, whether you want to sponsor a show. I mean, you could be a costume sponsor if you want to sponsor the Little Mermaid Junior that's opening up in two weeks, you know, like things like that. Or you could be a sponsor of, you know, our summer camps or there's ways that we could have sponsors for movie series, right? Or sponsors for different music programs if we do a, you know, bluegrass series that we're going to continue and other music series that are out there, so there are ways to be able to make that work. Yes, municipal funds have decreased. It is quite obvious. And being with the Arts Council in the role of managing director and director of the theater for years, and even before that, I have seen that happen. But there's that you have to as an executive director, I have to think outside the box. Like I can't just, I have to think of donor cultivation. I have to think about ways to be able to raise the funds, new ways to be able to be innovative, to be able to touch on maybe a different generation, to bring them into what our amazing theater does. And so, there are ways to do that, and there are also ways to go after grants and other opportunities. And our staff and our team, I mean, we just got done doing 2 grants night. I mean, I think: "Miss Shepherd, I probably, you probably hit the button." Miss Leanne Shepherd's my co-founder. And we were talking, we just did finish all budgets and all that kind of stuff and looking at, you know, stuff. And I'm sure she probably hit the button for the city grant. These are things that you have to do. And with the times, things change. You know, people change. I find that now people are a lot more in the digital world than what they used to be, back in the day. And so, what does that mean? How do we attract a new donor? How do we attract a new sponsor? How do we attract a new program? And these are ways that what we're doing now, these are things that we're doing now. So, I think that, the way that our agreement is with the housing authority is where we are going to meet them every quarter after every quarter, and we're going to take a look at what their bills are. They're going to take a look at our books, and they're going to say, okay, these are our bills. This is why, okay, so let's settle up. So, we want to make sure that the housing authority is not having to come out of pocket with anything. We don't want them to have to spend more money than what they need to. If the ACT ONE Theater Company can provide the ability for them to pay their bills, the housing authority and us to pay our bills and program things for the community, then that is the path that I think we need to move forward with. And so, because right now, I almost have a sold-out concert on the 14th and a sold-out show that runs for 10 performances, a Little Mermaid Jr. So, these are the things that we're doing. And here's a plug, Little Mermaid Jr., the 19th through the 1st of March.
WMRA: Well, I've got you here, and is there anything else that I didn't think to ask that you would want people to know as Court Square is entering this new chapter and the community is being part of it?
Gulla: I would just like to say, if you're a community member who are really interested in art, in performing art, and even visual art, movies, et cetera, reach out to us, let us know what you're interested in. If you happen to be blessed and you have a whole bunch of amounts of money, and you would love to sponsor a program or help to make things more economical for our community so they can see performing art or see movies at a lower ticket price, please reach out to us. I mean, we are a 501c3. Anything that you donate to our program, which in turn would go towards Court Square Theater's programming or operational, et cetera, would be a tax write-off. And so, you know, we are all about community needs. That's the reason why we're doing what we're doing. We are taking that sacrifice, and it's working, and we are very blessed to be in that situation. But we also want the community to be involved too. And sometimes you need to be involved in ways that you are touched to be involved, right? So, if you have the funds, then that would be your thing if you're a philanthropist. Or if you're somebody who's an artist and you want to be involved in doing something, then that's how you do that and be involved in the community. But that's how we have to come together. And I'm very excited about, I mean, this has only been like 3 weeks. But 3 weeks, we've already got ticket sales up, we've already got website up, we've already got this and that, and we're already moving. We're moving and shaking, man. We're moving and shaking!
WMRA: JP, thank you so much. I'm eager to see what happens here in the next year.
Gulla: Well, thank you for your support. We appreciate you.
The series of community input meetings about Court Square’s future will start this Thursday, February 5.
