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UTEP Dinner Theatre program revamped, musicals season shortened [1]

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Date: 2024-09-05

After a year of speculation that the UTEP Dinner Theatre might shut down after 40 years, university officials Thursday announced the restructured program will raise the curtain on a 42nd season and will involve more students, a tenure-track musical theater faculty member at its helm and a new funding model that relies less on student fees to support it.

“Musical theater at UTEP will be more closely connected to our teaching mission and will be funded in a way that is more fair to our students,” UTEP President Heather Wilson said in a statement.

UTEP said the changes follow a review of operations, which found the program was heavily subsidized by student fees. Last season, the theater had an operating budget of about $1 million, with average ticket sales of $95,000 per production – or $380,000 for a season comprising four productions. Starting this fiscal year, the university will provide the program with an additional $322,000 allocation to replace a similar amount that previously came from student fees, according to a news release issued Thursday by the university. Only about 10% of past show attendees were students, the university said.

The theater had long been a standalone program under the College of Liberal Arts, but will now be part of the Department of Theatre and Dance in that college. As part of its restructuring, the program will place greater emphasis on students playing roles in its productions, the release states. The review showed that fewer than half the performers in past shows were students.

The shortened season will feature Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” in October, “Grease” in April and “The SpongeBob Musical” in July. The program previously featured four shows per season.

In announcing the revamp of the program on social media last month, coordinator Jaime Barba said that the university would no longer provide the program student service fees, which will cut its budget in half.

“We were told, ‘You have to make money to make sure you make budget,’” Barba wrote on the Aug. 21 post on the Dinner Theatre alumni Facebook page. He added that the UDT already had started a fundraising campaign.

A theater department faculty member since 2006, Barba served as the theater’s interim director after founder and longtime director Greg Taylor retired in August 2023. The program started in 1983. Barba earlier this week told El Paso Matters he was not at liberty to comment.

Taylor, who was initially surprised and dismayed by UTEP’s decision, also said he would prefer not to comment on future UDT operations. “I wish them well,” he said in a text.

The university said it is searching for a new tenure-track faculty member who specializes in musical theater voice to serve as the program’s director.

Justin Cardenas, center, musical director of the UTEP Dinner Theatre’s upcoming production of “Beauty and the Beast,” rehearses with cast members. (Daniel Perez /El Paso Matters)

Barba in his celebratory Facebook post about the program continuing asked the public to support the productions.

Musical rehearsals started last week for “Beauty and the Beast,” which is scheduled to run Oct. 11-27. Actors took over an alcove on the second floor of Union West next to the theater. The company previously did the Disney production during the 2004-05 season.

More than 20 performers, mostly UTEP theater students with a few alumni and two child actors in the mix, went over songs under the direction of Justin Cardenas, the show’s musical director. The singers followed along in their music and lyric books. Some wrote notes based on Cardenas’ instructions. Barba, who will direct the production, was not present and was not expected to attend until it was time to block the scenes – or position the actors on stage in theater talk.

Department faculty familiar with the merger did not want to speak on the record for fear of reprisals, but two instructors in separate discussions referred to the initial way the program’s situation was handled as “a mess.” Another said that there was a lot at stake and the department needed to do what it could to help the Dinner Theatre do well.

The future of the UTEP Dinner Theatre became unclear after Anadeli Bencomo, dean of UTEP’s College of Liberal Arts, sent an email in September 2023 to UDT supporters stating that the university saw Taylor’s retirement as an opportunity to make changes that would enhance the Dinner Theatre and benefit students, faculty and community partners.

The UTEP Dinner Theatre production of “We Will Rock You” was held over for additional shows in February 2024. (Courtesy UTEP Dinner Theatre)

The university sent out two public notices in October to give its position about musical theater at UTEP.

The first on Oct. 4, authored by Bencomo and Provost John Wiebe, promised that the institution would continue to produce musical theater to educate and train students and entertain audiences. It also alerted fans that the university would study how to better integrate productions into curriculum, how to keep productions affordable to produce and for the general public, and how to create a sustainable institutional support structure to continue musical theater productions.

A second note, dated Oct. 20, stated that the university had formed a committee to develop a plan for musical theater at UTEP. It was to include representatives from the UDT, College of Liberal Arts and the Division of Student Affairs. Officials at the time said they expected a plan to be completed at the end of the fall 2023 semester.

Bencomo in a statement Thursday said it makes sense to support the program financially and connect it to the university’s teaching mission.

“We want to produce great musical theater for the community and also give more opportunities for our students both on-stage and in the audience,” Bencomo stated, adding that students will be offered more ticket discounts.

The UTEP Dinner Theatre at Student Union West on campus (Courtesy UTEP Dinner Theatre)

While UTEP Dinner Theatre productions will continue, the future of the program’s home is in question as the university is looking to rebuild the Student Union by increasing student fees.

UTEP students will vote Sept. 16-19 on whether they should fund the building’s overhaul by increasing their $30-per-semester Union fee to $70 per term next year and up to $150 per term in 2027-28.

In the “Student Union Referendum” website, the new “student-centered facility” does not include a new UTEP Dinner Theatre. However, there is a listing at the new Union West for a large ballroom that could accommodate 600-800 people.

According to the Sourcebook of UTEP History, workers broke ground on the Student Union Building, now Union West, in 1947. The current Dinner Theatre space in Union West was once used as a ballroom.

As part of the 10-year master plan that President Heather Wilson shared with the University of Texas System Board of Regents on Aug. 21, Union West was among the nine UTEP buildings that were slated for demolition.

UTEP did not address the referendum or the future of the Dinner Theatre’s building in its release.

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[1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2024/09/05/utep-dinner-theatre-revamped-department-of-theater-and-dance/

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