Changing Hands

After 28 successful years with Ralph Miller at the helm, Bucks County Playhouse may soon have new ownership and nonprofit status.

By: Daniel Shearer

Staff photos by Daniel Shearer

The recently formed nonprofit group Theater Restoration Inc. is hoping to buy Bucks County Playhouse from Ralph Miller (below).

   Developers have been eyeballing Bucks County Playhouse for many years.
   After examining its location, the allure becomes clear. The 450-seat theater and adjoining parking lot occupy waterfront commercial property on South Main Street in New Hope, Pa., a tourist destination with bustling shops and a vibrant restaurant scene. Viewed across the Delaware River from Lambertville, the building dominates the borough’s skyline. It’s also right across the street from the New Hope Visitors Center.
   Ralph Miller, a native of Warminster, Pa., has owned and operated the Playhouse as a for-profit theater for nearly 30 years, an impressive feat in light of the gradually dwindling number of similar theaters in the Northeast. However, Mr. Miller, 57, envisions a time several years down the road when he may no longer be involved with the Playhouse.

   "One of these years, I’m gonna decide that I just don’t want to do this anymore," he says, seated in the theater’s business office two weeks ago. Earlier that day, he reviewed a draft copy of a letter of intent that may very well determine the Playhouse’s fate.
   "My concern is," he continues, "as the development around here has progressed, I’ve been offered large sums of money for this building and the parking lot, which I own. I feel that whoever is taking care of the Bucks County Playhouse is just that: They’re a caretaker. Even though I own the property, and I could do with it what I want, I think the obligation that I have is to try to see that this theater ends up staying a theater."
   He pauses, adding an afterthought: "I could probably make a lot more money if I went a different direction."
   Instead of seeking out the highest bidder, Mr. Miller has another idea in mind. He’s hoping to sell the Playhouse to a nonprofit organization, Theater Restoration Inc., formed two months ago with help from the 15-member executive board of the New Hope Chamber of Commerce, part of a volunteer organization with more than 200 member businesses.
   Plans for the deal began taking shape last year, after a borough councilman approached Mr. Miller to discuss the Playhouse’s future. That particular conversation didn’t lead anywhere, he says, but it compelled others to come forward when they caught wind of it.
   "Up until that point," Mr. Miller says, "I didn’t have the confidence… to trust somebody with the future of this playhouse, despite the fact that I know people who serve on the council have New Hope’s best interest at heart. There’s a lot of politics involved there, and I didn’t want politics coming in here, as it was in the ’60s, which turned this place into being totally unprofitable."
   Specifically, Mr. Miller became interested in a deal when he was visited by Brian and Adam Fitting — brothers and co-owners of Triumph Brewing Co. in New Hope, a brew pub and restaurant that opened last April in the borough’s new Union Square development — along with Triumph’s sales and training manger, J.D. Coleates. They wanted to preserve and renovate the theater.
   The trio met with Herb Millman, Chamber of Commerce president, and his partner, John Dwyer, to work out a plan. Messrs. Millman and Dwyer own Cockamamie’s, an art deco and collectable shop on Bridge Street a few blocks away from the Playhouse.
   "We were all talking about this," Mr. Millman says, "and my partner, John, is passionate about the theater. He performed on the Bucks County stage about four years ago. He did three shows that season. He’s also directed plays out of state in Michigan, where he’s from, so he’s had about 25 years of live theater background.
   "We started talking about the playhouse, how valuable it is to the community, and it’s actually the jewel in the crown of New Hope," he continues. "I wanted to know how the Chamber could get involved with the purchase or acquisition of the playhouse."
   The project also appealed to Adam Fitting, who has been active in community theater, particularly in Princeton, where Triumph Brewing Co. opened its first restaurant in 1994.
   Triumph established a prominent role in New Hope’s business community with remarkable rapidity. Shortly after opening, the owners offered to host Chamber of Commerce board meetings at their restaurant, where the board now meets monthly. Triumph also was where the board, of which Brian Fitting and Mr. Coleates are members, unanimously approved a $10,000 allocation to assess the feasibility of acquiring and operating the Playhouse as a nonprofit theater. The board announced that portion of the plan, with Mr. Miller present, at the Chamber’s Christmas party at Triumph in mid-December.
   "I started hashing things out with Ralph maybe three or four months prior to that (announcement)," Mr. Coleates says. "It was a long time talking with him, back and forth, and really, Brian, myself and Adam, making him feel comfortable. Ralph wanted to talk to us. He came and saw our business. He saw what we did. He came and dined here. The people from the Playhouse, actually, sing and perform a lot here, because we have live music here.
   "He’s gone to great lengths to make sure that it’s preserved. Many developers have tried to just offer him millions of dollars… and of course anybody would be interested in a sale, but he wants to make sure that history, and that jewel which he’s protected for so many years, stays that way."
   Parties on both sides declined to discuss the sale price, but the effort will undoubtedly require a multimillion-dollar fund-raising campaign. Mr. Millman would say only that the proposal will require a "major fund-raiser."
   "I cannot disclose a dollar figure at this point," Mr. Millman says, adding that the deal is still under negotiation. He also declined to discuss the cost of renovating the theater.
   "We really are not going to know about (restoration costs) until we do a feasibility study," Mr. Millman says.
   That study, he says, is not currently underway, but he hopes it will be completed within the next 90 days. If all goes well, Mr. Millman said, Theater Restoration Inc. intends to sign a purchase agreement with Mr. Miller.
   "When you talk about restoration," Mr. Millman says, "you’re talking about upgrading seats, carpeting, sound systems, lighting.
   "I’ll tell you what my dream is. I would like to see, down the road, shows coming to Bucks County Playhouse on their way to Broadway, as it used to be in the past. That’s my dream. We’re talking musicals, of course, and some straight theater. We want to make it happen. It’s not going to be easy, but I think that because it’s the Bucks County Playhouse, and because it has such a strong significance in New Hope, I think people will contribute. The other part of my goal is to have the theater operate on a year-round basis."
   If the purchase takes place, Mr. Miller says responsibility for running the Playhouse would shift incrementally over a period of several years.
   "Somebody needs to have control of an operation," Mr. Miller says. "I was approached by the Chamber, with Triumph being the lead people. I know them. I’ve been doing business with them since they’ve been in town, and a confidence level developed, where I felt I could structure a deal, that they have a right to buy me out over a long period of time, which gives them the time to raise funding and go to the arts councils to raise the money that they need.
   "Then there would be a transition period of five to 10 years after that, where they would ease me out as they moved in. The combination of the Chamber, to help with fund-raising, the community owning it, and the Triumph Brewery principals controlling it, was what sparked my interest and eventually led to an agreement."
   Mr. Miller worked at the Playhouse for the first time in 1975, when the nonprofit group running it, BCP Inc., hired him to produce Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar.
   A graduate of William Tennet High School, Mr. Miller was a math major at Bloomsburg University but never earned a degree. During the time, he cultivated his skills as a musical arranger. Returning to Doylestown in the early ’70s, he founded Now-Time Singers, a group that performed medleys of popular songs.
   "We were booked two and a half years ahead of time," he says, "and we were asked to help do some of the Miss Bucks County Pageants and to be the featured act. Our crew would run the sound and light for ’em, and a gentleman by the name of Marlon Moyer, who owned Trevose Federal Savings, was the big benefactor behind that. He made it known to me that he knew my goal was to eventually own the Bucks County Playhouse."
   Mr. Miller had originally sought work at the Playhouse in 1969, when he approached Lee Yopp, who was running the theater at the time. Mr. Miller told Mr. Yopp about his ideas for a drama festival, and his ambition to expand the season and do musicals, but apparently his sales pitch needed some work.
   "I was so abrasive that he literally threw me out of the building," Mr. Miller says. "When I walked down to the bottom of the steps, I remember turning around and looking at him and said, ‘Someday I’m coming back here, and I’m gonna own this place.’"
   Several years later, Mr. Miller got a second chance. His first two productions sold well in spring 1975, and plans were in place for an encore the following year, when the Manhattan-based producer who was running the Playhouse gave notice that he wouldn’t be returning.
   "(BCP Inc.) asked me if I would put a summer season together, and I did," Mr. Miller says. "It was the first one that was successful in 15 years, and as a result of that, I had an opportunity the following year to purchase the building.
   "When I took over in ’76, I did all musicals. Prior to that, it was still summer stock, but it was primarily a small playhouse. Occasionally they would do a musical but not very often. And of course I was laughed at when I came here in ’76, because I was doing revivals of the old musicals — ‘Man of La Mancha,’ ‘Jesus Christ Superstar,’ ‘Godspell.’ But since, Broadway has learned that’s where the money is, so what I was being laughed at for doing in ’76, Broadway in the mid-’80s started doing. Now that’s pretty much the mainstay on Broadway, revivals of musicals. The national tours, the Equity tours, are all these revivals of musicals."
   While Broadway got busy with musical revivals, in 1984 Mr. Miller purchased the Pocono Mountain Playhouse in Mountainhome, applying the same programming model he used in New Hope. Last summer, he made plans to acquire a foothold in yet another playhouse, the Struthers Library Theatre, a 1,000-seater in Warren, a 45-minute drive from Erie, and a half hour from Jamestown, N.Y.
   "There’s a lot of population in the area that comes to (Warren) to vacation, especially in the summer months, which is similar to what happens here at Bucks County Playhouse," he says.
   Struthers representatives learned about Mr. Miller’s theaters on the Web and contacted him, which led to a short-term lease.
   "I’m taking over the summer season," he says, "producing a summer season. If that season does well, then I’ll sign a long-term lease with those folks on a year-round situation. They were having problems getting product and having a full summer season, and the fact that we mount our own shows, we are not at the mercy of some New York producer that might produce, or might not produce."
   Although Mr. Miller has shown himself to be a shrewd businessman, working as a roofer to put himself through college, then running a construction company in the mid-’80s that built homes near Daytona Beach, Fla., at a fly-in community, he says he’s "not a meeting person."
   "With three theaters, I have very little time to spend with my kids and family, let alone get involved with meetings," he says. "I hate boards. Nonprofit boards drive me up a tree. They sit for hours and accomplish nothing — won’t get involved with something like that."
   But after negotiating with several well-connected New Hope businessmen, who believe the brightest future for the Bucks County Playhouse lies in running it as a nonprofit, Mr. Miller is inching closer to turning over the reigns.
   "My confidence is in a group of younger men who believe in New Hope," he says, "and believe in this theater, who want to see it preserved."
Bucks County Playhouse, 70 S. Main St., New Hope, Pa., will present Jesus Christ Superstar, directed by Ralph Miller, April 1-2, 11 a.m., 8 p.m.; April 3, 10, 4 p.m. 8 p.m.; April 8, 11 a.m., 8 p.m.; April 9, 2 p.m., 8 p.m. Tickets cost $22-$24. For information, call (215) 862-2041. On the Web: www.buckscountyplayhouse.com