Three of Encore Musical Theatre Company’s four co-founders, Ann Koch, Paul Koch and Dan Cooney, with choreographer Michael Mindlin. Photo: D.V. Calamia

A tiny slice of Broadway opens in Dexter

By Donald V. Calamia

DEXTER - Call them crazy - and many probably will - but the founders of a new, about-to-open professional theater may have found the magic formula to lure customers out of their homes during these tough economic times. "Bring in my friends from Broadway, mix them with local talent and keep it bare-bones simple," executive and artistic director Dan Cooney explained recently from the still-under-construction office of the Encore Musical Theatre Company in downtown Dexter. "But first you have to pick a good musical."

And that he has. The non-profit, 126-seat theater opens Feb. 5 with Evita, the popular, Tony Award-winning musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice that explores the life and death of Argentina's Eva Peron. Afterwards, the six-show season continues with Guys and Dolls (April), Little Shop of Horrors (June), Oklahoma (August) and Sweeney Todd (October). It's a medley of styles and eras that should appeal to a broad range of theatergoer - especially musical theater lovers, who should find Cooney's programming philosophy quite appealing. "There's going to be a Sondheim, an Andrew Lloyd Webber, a Rodgers and Hammerstein every season. And every year we'll do a Christmas show," he said.

The productions will feature the "nuts and bolts" of a Broadway show, but they won't be Broadway-scaled shows, Cooney emphasized. "We're not trying to be a Broadway company. We don't have $5 million and all the bells and whistles. We just want to do the plays - with good acting, good singing and a good story, as opposed to all the helicopters and barricades flying around."

Instead, it will be Cooney and the Broadway talent he's bringing to Dexter who will do the flying.

Jessica Grové, whose Broadway credits include Sunday in the Park with George, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Les Miserables, stars in the title role of Evita. She'll soon return to Broadway in the musical Angels.

The role of Che will be played by Cooney. A Westland native, Cooney has appeared on Broadway (Les Miserables), off-Broadway (Under the Bridge) and in numerous national tours (Evita, Fiddler on the Roof). Following Evita, he'll head back to New York to appear in the Broadway premiere of Dolly Parton's 9 to 5.

Choreography is by Michael Mindlin, whose Broadway performance credits include Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the upcoming 9 to 5.

It's that caliber of talent that Vice President Paul Koch points to when asked why people should check out his theater. "We've got guys like Michael, a choreographer on Broadway, working with a young student from Dexter High School. He is so cool with everybody - from the professionals all the way down to the drama student. And she's working with a Broadway choreographer. How cool is that?"

And what brings them here? "I'll be cashing in a lot of favors for the next 10 years," Cooney laughed. "A lot of people in the Broadway community just want to do a particular role. That's why Jessica Grové, who's my fiancée, is here."

And once they get to Dexter, they love it there, said President Anne Koch.

Why? "They're treated like rock stars," her husband Paul, a native of Dexter, chuckled. "And they like working with Dan."

The beginnings

The seeds for The Encore Musical Theatre Company were sown years ago at John Glenn High School where Cooney and Anne Koch sang together in Concert Choir. Cooney later sang at the Koch's wedding, but their paths didn't cross again for nearly 20 years.

At 19, Cooney headed to New York. "It was the best time of my life, working for $220 a week doing dinner theater," he recalled. At 21, he booked his first national tour - with a salary that shocked his father. "That's when the 'get a real job' thing stopped," Cooney grinned.

Yale School of Drama followed, from which Cooney was graduated in 1999. "That gave me a nice set of skills to prepare me for something like this," he noted.

In the meantime, Paul Koch joined the navy - he was in the submarine corps - and the Kochs found themselves living in Rhode Island where they fell in love with a small theater in a little house. "When we moved back to this area, we always thought about (having such a theater here) in Dexter," Anne Koch, the mother of five, recalled.

That desire bubbled to the surface when the husband of a child's teacher co-founded the Williamston Theatre. "So we talked about wouldn't it be cool to have that style of theater here," she said.

That led Anne to search the internet for little theaters in the area, and at the bottom of a Web site she spotted Cooney's name. So she sent her former classmate an e-mail explaining what she was doing - and that's when she learned they shared a similar goal.

In fact, Cooney - with Michael Sawaya, ultimately another Encore co-founder - had been presenting shows off and on in Southeast Michigan, but renting spaces in which to stage Broadway-style shows proved problematic. "So that's how I grabbed the opportunity to just focus on what I feel like I was doing best - with Mike coming in to produce," Cooney said.

Coincidentally, the Kochs weren't the only ones considering Dexter for their theater.

"My brother Jeff and I camp there all the time," Cooney explained, "And I said, 'Jeff, I'd love to have a theater around here. This would be the perfect place.'"

But Jeff replied - like hundreds, if not thousands of others in similar discussions - "But Jeff Daniels has a theater out here. You can't do it here."

And with that, his dreams were squashed - at least until about four years later when Cooney received Anne Koch's initial e-mail. "But Jeff has a theater here," she also told Cooney.

"But they don't do musicals. And we want to do musicals," Cooney responded.

The potential, therefore, became quite clear. "There's a market here," they agreed.

The competition

Musicals have become quite popular these days - as theatergoers look for entertainment that uplifts rather than depresses. And since no professional theater in the area exists solely to stage musicals, The Encore Musical Theatre is poised to tap a potentially lucrative market - with little competition from its neighbors.

"Performance Network will throw in (a musical) once in a while," noted Cooney, "and quite frankly, that's a huge relief for me, because plays are covered around here - and that's not my passion. I went to grad school studying Shakespeare, Chekov and Ibsen - and I enjoyed it, and I'm grateful for the training. But I'm not that interested in it anymore. The Purple Rose and the Network have that covered. They do all kinds of great plays."

In fact, it's the founders' desire NOT to directly compete with their neighbors. "We feel pretty strongly that to get into any kind of competition with Performance Network or Jeff Daniels is just stupid," Cooney laughed. "It's just not smart business. We're all very passionate about musicals. If people want to see a play, that's covered (elsewhere). But this one aspect of the theater - the musical – wasn't being covered."

At least not on a professional level. But now it is - and in a big way.

"What we've always said is we'd love to complement each other. There's room for both - absolutely," said Anne Koch.

And that's true. "If you think about it, we're really asking people to come out just 18 nights in a year - and all three theaters can be hugely successful," Cooney said.

The community

Before committing to the project, the founders staged The Encore Theatre Project last January to gauge community interest. Featuring Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers, 400 people packed the one-night-only performance at the local high school. "So from there, we went off and started planning," Anne Koch said.

The founders first fell in love with a local movie house - but the price tag was prohibitive. "The renovations and gutting it alone was a million dollars," Cooney recalled.

But a building pointed out by Hackney Ace Hardware's Dan O’Haver – a major booster of the project - intrigued Cooney. "I walked past it, knocked on the door and the Dexter Builders let me in. They offered to sell part of the building, but I said no - you guys need to go. I need this whole half of the building."

From that point on, things began to move rather quickly.

"I thought - literally - that we'd come in, throw down some platforms, hang some lights, open the doors and put on a little show. Everybody will come - it'll be easy," Cooney laughed.

Then reality hit - thanks to the architects, the heating and cooling guys and the other building trades who became involved with the renovations. "We were talking about $75,000 just to get started," Cooney said of the 3,900 square-foot space at 3126 Broad St.

That's when the founders created the Encore 100 - a special fund-raising mechanism to generate 100 donors at $500 apiece. (Thirty-five have signed on so far.)

Luckily, much of the labor has been donated - as has the $40,000 heating and cooling system. And the work is coordinated by Paul Koch - who, with Anne, owns Koch Masonry in town. He personally knows the area's trades people, and he selected only the best to work on the renovations.

But it's not just inside the building where changes are happening. The world-renowned Jolly Pumpkin Brewery is adding a cafe across the street, and the Downtown Development Authority has improvement projects planned throughout the area.

"So things are falling into place," beamed an enthusiastic Paul Koch.

A destination spot

Visitors to Dexter will find a quaint downtown with plenty of parking and nearby dining options before or after a performance.

"We have at least three awesome restaurants within walking distance," Anne Koch noted. "Dinner and a show go hand in hand."

The Jolly Pumpkin Brewery has Cooney especially excited. "We have a small place, and we're concerned about lobby space - where will people go? They can take a three-second walk across the street and be in a little cafe for a Michigan-brewed beer and a sandwich."

And across the parking lot is the Bistro Renaissance, a "casually elegant dining" spot with classic French and Italian influences. "They've already said they'll stay open for intermission if people want to come in and grab a quick drink," Cooney said. "So we’ll extend the intermission for 20 minutes."

It's that type of community response that bodes well for the fledgling theater. "We're pretty happy right now with our 126 seats, our space and the town thus far," Cooney concluded.

And given the top-notch caliber of talent that will soon storm the Encore stage, area theatergoers and business owners are likely to agree.

SHOW DETAILS:

The Encore Musical Theatre Company, 3126 Broad St., Dexter. Feb. 5-8 & 12-15. Tickets: $28. For information: 734-268-6200 or www.theencoretheatre.org.

Editor's note: The Encore Musical Theatre Company and Encore Michigan LLC are two separate and distinct corporations with no organizational ties to one another.

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Read SEAN DALTON's preview in The Dexter Leader (Feb. 5, 2009)

Read JENN MCKEE's preview in The Ann Arbor News (Feb.1, 2009)