Articulations

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Paramount & State Merge

It's the age of mergers. Almost every day, the news brings us another announcement of two corporations fusing themselves into a single business behemoth. Well, if it's good enough for Exxon and Mobil, why not a pair of Austin theatres? And last week, it appeared that it was. On Thursday, March 23, the boards of the Paramount Theatre for the Performing Arts and the State Theater Company got in the spirit of the age by mutually approving a proposal to join forces and form a new performing arts entity. If it isn't as monumental a union as Time Warner and AOL, it's still historic where the Austin arts scene is concerned. The Paramount and the State represent two of the city's major performance venues, accounting for 1,600 seats between them, and together their budgets exceed $5 million. While local arts organizations have occasionally teamed up for projects or causes, such as the ARTS Center Stage crusade for the Palmer-to-Long Center conversion, rarely have they done so permanently and never on this scale, I don't believe.

The merger -- approved by the two boards in separate meetings on the same night -- is no overnight whim. It follows several months of exploratory discussions on both sides, stemming from both boards' interest in capitalizing on the growth their respective organizations have enjoyed in recent years and finding ways to expand their programs without overtaxing their institutions' limited resources. With the two theatres side by side on Congress Avenue, it was inevitable that their staffs and managing bodies would someday become aware of each other's operations, needs, and plans, and find some common ground there. As it happened, the Paramount began to look at adding a chief executive officer to its staff (releasing longtime director Paul Beutel to more of an artistic director's role) at about the same time that the State began to consider splitting the post of producing artistic director, held by Don Toner since 1987, into managing director and artistic director positions. The boards got wind of each other's plans, and somebody got the idea -- and possibly Paramount board chair Bill Willis and State board chair Hilary Young had light bulbs over their heads at the same time -- that the theatres might solve their problems most effectively by merging. Feelers were extended, many meetings were held, and you know the rest.

The first order of business for the combined theatres was the hiring of its new CEO, and it's a done deal. Dan Fallon, whose credentials include stints managing Pittsburgh Public Theater, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and the Ford Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, is the guy, and he starts his new job April 3. Beutel has already met with Fallon and says that he believes Fallon to be a good match for the organization. The theatres' second order of business will be coming up with a new name to reflect their new status -- although it bears noting that the State Theater Company and the Paramount will still be independent entities to a degree, with the former still mounting its own productions and the latter maintaining its presentational mission.

Obviously, it's the start of a new era for both organizations. In one sense, though, it's a step forward into the past: The Paramount and State were linked for decades via the Dallas chain Interstate Amusements, which booked the movies that were shown in both houses. What goes around comes around.