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Performing Arts

At the corner of Broadway and College Drive

Film transmissions of great plays arrive in Durango

In a sequence of bold decisions, live opera and theatrical productions are now streaming into Durango on Saturday mornings. How did it happen?

New technology, imagination, lots of money and the courage to take a chance.

It started in 2006 when The MET – Live in HD satellite streamed an English language version of “The Magic Flute” to a handful of movie theaters in England, Japan and Norway. The project appeared to be a success, so Peter Gelb, the Met’s new general manager, added 100 new screens in 2007. The rest is entertainment history.

A year later seeing the Met market world-class opera to world-wide audiences, the National Theatre of Great Britain apparently thought: why not us?

In June 2009, NT Live launched its own movie theater transmissions of live performances. The company began with Helen Mirren in Racine’s “Phèdre.” Now concluding its sixth successful year, NT Live has added its first Broadway production: the 2014 revival of John Steinbeck’s classic tale of friendship, “Of Mice and Men.”

But it’s another big leap from the merger of British and American drama to a small independent movie theater in Durango, Colorado.

On Saturday morning, Animas City Theatre will screen a film rendition of a live performance of the Steinbeck play. It features James Franco and Chris O’Dowd.

“The performance took place last July,” Michele Redding said in an interview last week. “NT Live filmed it, and now we’ll screen it Saturday.”

Redding and her husband, Chris, opened ACT in August 2013. After renovating the site, they have acquired a reputation for innovative programming on the premises of the old Abbey Theatre.

The Reddings are restaurateurs who arrived in Durango from Boston in 1994. Both in their mid-40s, they have a 15-year-old daughter and own the restaurant next door to ACT: Cuckoo’s Chicken House and Waterin’ Hole.

“When the previous owner of the Abbey stopped showing movies,” Michele Redding said, “there was a void. So we decided to do something about it.”

The Reddings refurbished the site and “went all digital, which allows us to do so much more, mix movies with live entertainment. It’s a new mix for Durango.”

The Reddings hired film expert Jane Julian to be their booking agent.

“Last January we went to the Art House Convergence Conference in Utah,” Michele Redding said. “We met a lot of independent theatre owners, and among other things, we talked about alternate content for cinemas.”

Redding said she came back to Durango, Googled NT Live and learned not even Albuquerque had a venue at the time. So she met with Charles Leslie, general manage of the Community Concert Hall, about The Met Live in HD.

“Charles said the program has been very successful, and he works with the same American distributor as NT Live. There’s an audience here,” she said, and proceeded to work up a contract for Saturday morning drama screenings that would not conflict with the MET opera programs.

A theater lover from high school and college days near Boston, Redding said she has noticed and admired the mix of Durango’s theatrical presentations.

The College Drive venue started the new venture with two showings of David Hare’s “Skylight.” That was followed by a new Nick Dear play, “Frankenstein,” featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller.

On Saturday and again on Jan. 10, ACT will screen the New York production “Of Mice and Men.”

So how did a Broadway show get into the National Theatre’s game?

According to the New York Times, Franco had been mulling over an American connection to NT Live. He approached David Binder, chief producer of “Mice,” and asked: “How do we do it?”

Binder called Tim Levy, at the New York office of NT-Live, and the project took off.

It’s another leap for Durango to join the global endeavor. In 2014, Michele and Chris Redding made that happen.

“We’ve been averaging 50 people per show,” Michele Redding said. “And we’ve kept ticket prices on the low end of the range, $15.”

Last year while on a family-tax visit to Michigan, I paid $25 to see a screening of Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in “The Audience.” It was worth it.

Redding said she chose the lower end for pricing, noting that $15 to see a professional play production is good value.

The Reddings have also just negotiated with the Stratford Festival of Canada for several Shakespearean productions to air in 2015. The first, “King Lear,” is scheduled for Feb. 28.

jreynolds@durangoherald.com. Judith Reynolds is a Durango writer, art historian and arts journalist.

If you go

The NT Live screening of “Of Mice and Men,” will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday at Animas City Theatre, 128 East College Drive. Tickets are $15, visit www.animascitytheatre.com for more information.



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