New place for R.I. culture

The following article relates a newly opened arts center that is a for profit enterprise. Is this a new trend? Share you thoughts. As the article relates:

The name is sure to grab the attention of would-be theatergoers. It’s catchy, it’s ambitious, it emphasizes a sense of place.

And yet, when the Rhode Island Center for Performing Arts at the Historic Park Theatre hosts its first stage production next weekend, the people who enter the state’s newest live entertainment venue will find more than just a theater.

In its new incarnation, the building that once housed the Park Cinema is also home to a café, a nightclub and a 200-seat all-purpose area that can serve as a restaurant for theatergoers, a comedy club and a room for receptions and business functions.

The extras are part of owner Piyush Patel’s plan to make sure the new theater at the corner of Park and Pontiac avenues does what any business sets out to do: make money.

That will not be easy. Even in good times, it’s hard for theaters to make money, industry people say. And with the economy in tatters, it will be that much harder.

There’s also the issue of size. With 1,050 seats, the new theater is relatively small in the world of live entertainment.

Patel, 69, a native of India whose business interests include real estate, hotels and personal care products, says that is why he has cast such as wide net.

“Every business plan has some kind of escape strategy, you know, what happens if it doesn’t work,” he said. “That’s why I came up with the idea, a total entertainment complex.”

This is not to say that Patel won’t be trying to make money from the theater end of the business.
He has hired Jack Nicholson, a New Englander with a long history in managing sporting and entertainment venues, to oversee the theater operation. And Nicholson, like Patel, is casting a wide net.

For patrons who think theater means plays and musicals, the new venue will be working with the Stoneham Theatre, in Stoneham, Mass., which has been producing its own shows since it — like the Park — reopened in a historic former cinema. The Park will help subsidize those productions — this year’s list includes “My Fair Lady,” “Gaslight,” “Always … Patsy Cline,” and “Hockey Mom, Hockey Dad” — and will host perhaps four or five shows a year.

Dates for those performances are still being determined, in part because Nicholson is also working to book live acts. Three will come to the Park during the late-winter/spring, though those dates are not set either: The Moscow Circus, the Rat Pack and the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
The live theater and live entertainment represent the jewels that the new theater plans to offer. Rounding out those offerings will be large-screen, high-definition broadcasts of sporting events — the Super Bowl, the World Series, World Cup soccer — and independent movies. Read more here.