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Former Hancher director returns to help Coralville theater project

By Loren Keller

When he left his position as director of Hancher Auditorium in 2001 to lead a dance company in New York City, Wallace Chappell said the Iowa City/Coralville area could use another performing arts venue.

Seven years later, he’s back and working as a part-time consultant for the city of Coralville on the proposed $10 million Coralville Center for the Performing Arts, projected to open in 2010.

“I consider myself very fortunate to jump right back in to this job here,” says Chappell, who felt it was "time to move on" from his job as director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company in New York City. “Unlike in New York, where there are hundreds of opportunities, here there are one or two.”

Given the ongoing national financial crisis and its likely fallout in New York — where Chappell spent three years as director of the American Ballet Theatre and the last four with the Paul Taylor Dance Company — the timing of his return to the Midwest couldn’t have been much better.

“It’s sad – the last couple weeks in New York are really going to affect fundraising for the arts,” says Chappell, who worked with corporate and private donors to raise millions of dollars as Hancher’s director and many millions more in his roles in New York. “So I’ve been saying to myself, without any self-satisfaction at all, that maybe I got out right in time.”

The proposed 518-seat performance venue in Coralville will be home to the City Circle Acting Company and located on the ground floor of Plaza on Fifth, a six-story commercial and residential project at the northwest corner of Fifth Street and 12th Avenue.

The city will fund $7 million of the project and hopes to secure a $1.8 million state Community Attraction and Tourism (CAT) grant, now on hold as those funds are being used to help with flood relief efforts. Chappell says about half of the remaining $1.2 million has been raised from private donors.

“You would think it would be a tough time in Iowa City to raise money, but I think that a lot of Iowans are not so affected by the financial collapse in New York City,” says Chappell, whose consulting duties include developing the business plan for the project. “They are affected, many of them, by the flood –either through their own homes or expectations that the (flood-displaced UI) Art Museum is going to come along and ask for a lot of money. But still, we’re doing fine.”

Chappell and his wife, Karen, are among those dealing personally with the aftermath of the June flooding; the couple bought a home in the Idyllwild neighborhood in 2001 before going to New York. Friends helped move their cars, artwork and some memorabilia from their home before the floodwaters inundated the north Iowa City neighborhood in June.

“We still lost an awful lot. It’s very dispiriting but we’re doing much better now,” says Chappell, who is renting a house on Rohret Road while dealing with the cleanup and repair at his Idyllwild home. “It’s been a wet homecoming.”

Chappell says he hasn’t had the heart to look inside the flood-damaged Hancher Auditorium – as its director he led a campaign to renovate the venue in the early 90s – but says its current directors, Charles Swanson and Judy Hurtig, have done an admirable job of salvaging its 2008-09 season.

Nearly two-thirds of the performances scheduled before the flooding will be held at alternative venues including the Englert Theatre, the Coralville Marriott Hotel and City and West high schools.

“I think it’s a bit of a miracle what they were able to do,” Chappell says. “In a way it’s good for Hancher to get out and around… You try to take that as an opportunity. What concerns me is we always worked so hard to get students into Hancher. They may not come to those places because they can’t walk there.”

The loss of Hancher Auditorium – officials report it will be at least January 2010 before it reopens – also means the temporary loss of one of the country’s major dance presenters.

During Chappell’s 15-year tenure here, Hancher became known as a premier performing arts venue that presented such groundbreaking performances as the Joffrey Ballet’s work with Prince on “Billboards” and the company’s well-loved “Nutcracker” production. As director of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Chappell brought the group to Hancher in 2004.

“What concerns me from my own special interest is that for two years there will no professional dance companies coming here, and there are a couple thousand students of dance schools in Johnson County,” he says. “They won’t have anything to see. Cedar Rapids has never presented any dance, and the halls in Cedar Falls, Waterloo, Ames and Des Moines don’t do much dance either. We were always it, so that’s kind of sad. Now we’ll have to go to Chicago.”

In the meantime, Chappell will continue to focus on raising money and building support for the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts. He is working under a renewable one-year contract and will be paid up to $50,000 a year.

Sherri Proud, Coralville’s director of parks and recreation who is coordinating the theater project, says Chappell was a natural fit for the job.

“It was a really great opportunity for the city of Coralville to bring somebody on board who is going to have a wealth of experience to draw from and help us with the project,” she says, adding that the project is moving ahead on schedule despite the loss of the $1.8 million in state funding this year.

“Obviously it’s a setback to have the CAT funding gone for 2009 but they have not reported yet on what will happen for 2010,” Proud says. “We don’t feel like it’s derailing us.”

Hancher director Charles Swanson welcomes the return of his predecessor but says the Coralville project will face plenty of challenges.

“As long as everybody feels comfortable with a business plan and thinks down the road it can be financially supported, go for it,” he says. “I do think those are things that need to be weighed. You really need to do your homework, because I’ve known theaters around the country that have struggled. Operating costs of a theater are pretty expensive.”

According to Chappell’s estimates so far, 26 groups could make use of the venue for a projected total of 183 nights annually. That includes the City Circle Acting Company, Coralville’s community theatre group, projected to use the space 76 nights annually.

The company’s director, Chris Okiishi, is happy to have Chappell on board with the project. “It certainly brings a terrific perspective and a wonderful arts history to the project,” he says.

Other users would likely include the Iowa City Community Theatre , the Nolte Dance Academy and schools including Northwest Junior High, Coralville Central, Kirkwood Elementary and Wickham Elementary. Chappell says the University of Iowa’s School of Music has also expressed an interest in performing its three yearly operas there.

“That’s a very heavy level of usage,” Chappell says. “There are no contracts written here but many are helping to contribute to the center, in particular the City Circle Acting Company, which has a lot of strong support.”

Operators of the Englert Theatre in Iowa City raised concerns earlier this year that a new performing arts venue in Coralville would lead to competition that would jeopardize its ability to remain open but later seemed to agree that the two venues could operate cooperatively.

Unlike the Englert, the Coralville venue does not plan to bring in professional touring companies.

“This is different from the Englert and Hancher,” Chappell says. “It’s all community groups. That could change at a later time, depending on what happens in the community, but right now it’s totally dedicated to being a community facility… I think the Englert will only be strengthened by this.”

Despite the delay in the $1.8 million state grant, Chappell is optimistic he can help make the plan for the venue a reality.

“I won’t say I’m an outsider, because I know a lot about this community, but I have a certain perspective,” says Chappell, who at age 67 says he has never planned to fully retire and will likely consult on other similar projects. “I’ve seen a lot of mistakes made around the country in centers like this.”