From Tibetan Chants to Dinner Theater: Wells Presenters Makes the Most of Partnerships

		Wells Presenters, Cashore Marionettes.

by Dinah Zeiger

It would be hard to imagine a more remote community in the lower 48 states than Wells, Nevada, tucked in the northeast corner of the state and closer to Idaho than to Las Vegas. It’s a long way from anywhere, one of those small towns scattered along the nation’s interstate highways. People stop only for gas and a soft drink before heading east or west along I-80. Wells — population 1,500, counting the surrounding ranches — is not the kind of place you’d expect to see live performances of interpretive modern dance, much less hear chanting by Tibetan monks.

People don’t spend much time thinking about the arts in this rural community. "They’re too worried about paying the electric bills," says Robin Boies, a member of Wells Presenters’ board. "They’re struggling so hard there’s no time to wish for these things, or even be aware of them." This is high desert — sagebrush country — where summer temperatures soar, and it’s dry and cold in the winter. Some of the ranches spread over 10,000 or more acres, and kids are bussed to school in Wells from 40 miles away. "You’re talkin’ one grocery store, no place to buy shoes and a couple of truck stops," says Tommi Reynolds, former president of Wells Presenters. "If you’re looking for arts, you have to go a long way, or count on what we bring in." It has no Asian population and few African Americans or Native Americans.

Yet the town’s reception of the Tibetan Monks of Deprung Losling Monastery, who perform the traditional deep-throated chants of Tibet, was openhearted. Their appearance in Wells was rather on the spur of the moment. The monks’ tour had taken them to nearby Elko, and they were more or less passing through on I-80. "That performance has kind of become part of the town legend," says Reynolds. "It was one of the most well-attended events we’ve ever done. And the community really responded. The LDS Church (Latter Day Saints) gave the monks a place to stay."

Thad Ballard, president of Wells Presenters, sees the organization’s work as a necessary part of broadening the community’s horizons. "It’s a stretch for many in our community, but I’ve never heard anyone say it’s a waste of time or money," he says. "Instead, they want to know how we got them (the performers) to come here."

Wells Presenters has accomplished this remarkable feat by playing to the strengths of community — bringing together people and institutions as partners — while leveraging local, state and federal grants, including National Endowment for the Arts regional touring program funds, channeled through TourWest, a competitive program of the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF). Perhaps its most unusual partnership is with the Wells Family Resource Center, a social services agency and licensed child care provider. On the surface they look like unlikely partners, but by joining forces they’ve managed to address several pressing community issues simultaneously.

Wells Presenters is fairly young as local arts agencies go, founded in 1992. It was difficult at first to see how a town so small could attract professional artists and performers, much less pay for them. Boies, an original board member, was actually working on historic preservation, and "we weren’t sure the community would support performing arts," she said. A meeting of the Nevada Presenters Network opened her eyes to the possibilities. "I saw how other small communities banded together, and now we depend on block-booking for programming," she said. "We’re on the I-80 corridor, so we’re lucky to be able to get artists who are booked into Las Vegas and other urban areas." Support from the Nevada Arts Council for administration as well as funding for tours and support for travel to booking conferences, plus the backing of the mayor, started the arts ball rolling.

The board also spent a lot of time cultivating relations with the schools. Boies calls it "a vital partnership. There are always a lot of skeptics in a small community. We couldn’t do what we do without the support of the schools," she said. Most performances are presented on the high school stage, and artists conduct demonstrations and workshops for teachers and students. Ririe Woodbury interpretive dance troupe packed in movement workshops for preschoolers and senior citizens, a workshop for high school athletes, one with the drill team, another with Tai Chi students, and still did two public performances over one three-day residency last November. The Cashore Marionettes, a Pennsylvania-based puppet theater with stories choreographed to classical music, managed to entertain preschoolers, elementary and high school students, and the general public at four separate performances over two days.

The partnership with the Family Resource Center grew out of a different need. Wells Presenters, an all-volunteer organization, realized it needed paid staff to keep up with the paperwork and coordination involved in booking tours. In 1997, the Nevada legislature funded 49 Family Resource Centers statewide with $20,000 over two years. The money flows through the Children’s Cabinet, a private foundation. Because the legislation was broadly written, local communities had the flexibility to use the funds as they saw fit. Some used the money to start a Little League program, others to provide a shelter for battered women.

Wells put the money into childcare and social services; today its Family Resource Center is a licensed childcare provider for children ages 2 and older. It offers a range of community services, says Theresa Currivan, from preschool to a teen center, housed in a multipurpose room at the grade school. The Center is a clearing-house for all kinds of community referrals and needs. Among other things, the Center publishes a bi-monthly newspaper, filling a gap in a community without a local paper.

"The town is so small that when the Center was starting up, many of the same people involved were also involved with Wells Presenters," Currivan said. "They saw that the two could serve each other." In fact, several board members serve on both boards. Boice, who serves on both boards, says the overlap is a plus. "It was very important, especially in the initial phase of the partnership, to move things along," she said.

One immediate benefit of the partnership was being able to hire Currivan as a part-time administrator for both Wells Presenters and the Wells Family Resource Center. Wells Presenters is now in the second year of a three-year salary-assistance grant from the Nevada Arts Council, which supports half Currivan’s salary, while the Center picks up the other half. "We could see what we wanted to do as presenters, but it was too hard to accomplish with only volunteers," Boies said. "At first, sustainability was our goal, but we also need to add depth and breadth to what we offer. Our dream is to have long-term residencies by artists."

Performances are usually booked for only one or two days, but when the Center and the Presenters pool resources longer residencies are possible. This summer, for example, fellowships from the Nevada Arts Council’s Resident Artists program underwrote two projects they supported jointly. Storyteller John Beach spent a week in June working with children at the Center, spinning tales and helping the kids write their own. During a two-week residency in August watercolorist Emily Silver taught painting techniques to children and adults at the Center. "Because of the relationship between Wells Presenters and the Family Resource Center we’re able to bring in a higher caliber of artist," said Currivan. "It reaches both parents and kids. I think parents see their children more involved with the arts, and it develops their interest to do more themselves."

Wells Presenters began to branch out last spring when it offered the first-ever dinner theater production in town. It was a calculated move, an effort to appeal to a different audience. "Usually our performances tend to draw an upper income, mostly female audience," Ballard said. "We hoped, by offering food and drinks, that we’d get ranchers, construction workers, husbands."

Tickets to the performance, Tim Behrens’ one-man show called "A Fine and Pleasant Misery: the Humor of Patrick McManus," sold out. McManus is editor-at-large for Outdoor Life and former associate editor of Field and Stream, and the play is based on his memories of growing up in rural Idaho. Using only a bare stage and a trunk of props, including a "road-kill collection," a middle-aged Behrens cleans out the garage and relives his childhood. "We tapped a whole new group of people. It was a big effort to reach a different demographic," Ballard said. And it succeeded. "I think it brought to light that Wells Presenters wasn’t just a bunch of ‘artsy’ people who do stuff for the kids," said Reynolds. "I had people come up and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize you did these kinds of things."

Wells Presenters tapped every resource in town to pull it off, earmarking some of its $5,323 Fiscal 2000 organizational grant from the Nevada Arts Council, including regranted money from NEA’s Parternship Grant to the Council, for the dinner-theater performance. The fire station was the venue, "and it was the first time it had ever been used for a community event," Ballard says. "We had to twist the City Council’s arm a bit to let us use the building and to get a temporary liquor license, but now they’ve asked us to put together guidelines for its use as a community building." A local brewery, Ruby Mountain Brewery, supplied beer before the performance, with a local café providing the buffet dinner. They borrowed stage and lighting equipment from the high school, and the Catholic Church loaned chairs.

"People came because it was something different," said Tommi Reynolds. "The performance was in March, and people get ‘cabin fever’ out here when winter sets in. They were looking for a break, and we gave them a good time." Good enough that Wells Presenters is planning to do it again next spring with blues musician Guy Davis, and a little help from their friends in town and TourWest, a WESTAF grant-subsidy program for presenters underwritten by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Through the TourWest program, WESTAF awards up to two grants per arts and community organization for artistic fees in amounts of up to $2,500 or 50% of the artistic fee — whichever is less. TourWest grants are provided to encourage the presentation of performing arts programming to audiences in communities such as Wells, that do not typically enjoy ready access to the performing arts.

National Endowment for the Arts
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