Arrival of big show will help Tucson, UApresents

After eight years of working to bring one of Broadway's biggest hits to Tucson, executive director Ken Foster and his staff at UApresents are celebrating the arrival of "Phantom of the Opera" at Centennial Hall.

Since joining UApresents eight years ago, just as "Phantom" was playing in Tempe, Foster has maintained the goal of bringing the musical to a Tucson stage.

"'Phantom' is perhaps one of the most successful shows in Broadway history. It's really a treasure for any arts-presenting organization to have," said UApresents publicist Tara Kirkpatrick. "It has yet to come to Tucson, so it's a big coup to bring it here."

The difficulty of bringing this show to any community is that - given the sheer magnitude of the production, with its cast and crew of more than 100 people and massive sets including the famous chandelier - its run at any venue has to be for more than one or two weeks. Otherwise, it would not be economically viable for the show, Kirkpatrick said.

"I was asking why we couldn't just bring the show here to Tucson," Foster stated in an e-mail interview. "The sentiment at that time was that the show would never come here, that our market could not possibly support such an expensive production."

Thus, any market on the show's touring schedule has to be able to support, through ticket sales, a long run. "Phantom" will be in Tucson for four weeks, which translates to 32 performances and 80,000 tickets.

"A lot of the naysayers in '94 and '95 were saying that Tucson could never support it," Kirkpatrick said. "(But) we have sold more tickets for this show alone than was our entire budget eight years ago."

Thus far, 70 percent of tickets have been sold, Kirkpatrick said, and UApresents is not concerned about the remaining ones, thanks to expected word of mouth.

"Word of mouth is our best friend," Kirkpatrick said. "Historically, Tucson is a very late-buying market."

Under Foster's leadership, UApresents has expanded its Broadway program, bringing a number of large-scale productions including record-breaking runs of "Riverdance" and a two-week run of "Miss Saigon" to the Centennial stage. These successes helped to set the stage, so to speak, for "Phantom's" arrival.

"Thanks to (our) commitment to Broadway and our string of box office successes year after year, we (UApresents) have built a reputation as one of the nation's top presenting organizations," Foster stated. "This paired with a local market that has continuously grown and prospered over the years has helped pave the way for bringing one of the world's blockbuster hits to Tucson."

The impact of "Phantom" on both UApresents and the Tucson community is not to be underestimated. The show has increased the subscriber base of the organization from 2,500 to nearly 10,000. UApresents has expanded its marketing strategies, even running Spanish-language advertisements in northern Mexico.

The local economy will see a similar boost during the musical's four-week run.

"The show has somewhat of an equation. For every dollar of tickets sold, you can count of $2 pumped into the local economy," Kirkpatrick said. "It's definitely had an impact in every city it's been to, and we expect no less than that here."

The show further has a cultural impact, dispelling the notion that if you want to see something good, you have to go to Phoenix.

"We have a lot of artists that come only to Tucson and not to Phoenix. 'Phantom' reinforces that we're a city coming into its own," Kirkpatrick said.

The only question that remains is, after eight years of hard work to bring "Phantom" to Tucson, where does UApresents go from here?

"This is just the start of things to come," Kirkpatrick said. "There are a few shows out there of the extent that 'Phantom' is. However, there is just no stopping us."