TheatreWashington seeks to be the new voice of the capital’s stages

Some in the business have noted that the city may be home to more prominent theaters than any place outside New York: The pioneering Arena, the Kennedy Center, Ford’s Theatre, Shakespeare and Signature — which won the regional theater Tony Award in 2009 — are recognizable names in their own right. And companies here of all sizes and stripes are stepping up in artistic ambition, delivering productions of ever more variety and daring. Washington, too, can boast its first bona fide hit Broadway transfer in years, the revival of “Follies” that started at the Kennedy Center in the spring.

So how is it that the energy so obviously felt in and just outside the Beltway has not translated into more renown — and more theater visitors? That Washington’s companies have no reliable data on how many people come here from elsewhere for theater is cited as another argument for a group to monitor the industry’s health.

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“It has always shocked me that we have this amazing theater community and not a leading theater organization,” says Paul Tetreault, director of Ford’s Theatre. Signature’s managing director, Maggie Boland, adds that, the prestige of the late actress notwithstanding, “it’s much harder for us, the theaters, to get behind any industry-wide initiatives under the name ‘the Helen Hayes Awards.’ ”

Grossman explains that the Helen Hayes Awards decided to explore the possibility of expanding its mission after administrators such as Jennings, Tetreault and Boland urged her to do so.

“What they wanted was a unified voice; they wanted someone to represent their interests,” she says. “We want to create a brand for Washington theater, both for those who live here and those who come here.”

Obtaining a grant from Compass — a Washington group that assigns teams of volunteer MBAs from top business schools to local nonprofits for nine-month studies of how to increase their effectiveness — Helen Hayes embarked on an investigation of how to reinvent itself.

“We saw the potential for their impact to be greater,” explains Suzanne Laporte, Compass’s executive director. Out of the study came a decision to create TheatreWashington as a larger entity, with a board of directors, and with Grossman as its head. The awards would operate as a separate arm of TheatreWashington, with their own board of governors.

Over the past few months, the staffing of TheatreWashington began. The hires include Alli Houseworth, formerly of Woolly Mammoth Theatre, as director of communications, and Brad Watkins, until recently the producing director of Olney Theatre Center, as director of theater operations. Manny Strauss, a Bethesda lawyer who with wife Betsy Karmin ran the Washington Theater Review, a journal that is no longer publishing, has been hired as managing editor of the new group’s Web site, and Grossman will soon name a director of development.

A crucial question is how this new body will raise money for its programs, salaries and initiatives. According to Grossman, the Helen Hayes Awards has a budget of just under $1 million; she expects that in its first year, TheatreWashington will require an additional $500,000, and half a million dollars more than that in its second year. Those added funds haven’t been raised. A plan is in the works to charge membership dues to theater companies based on their size.

“We did not feel that there was going to be enough contributed support to grow this organization in the way it needs to grow overnight,” Jennings says.

Privately, some theater professionals in town, while expressing support for the concept, say they’re dubious about a new entity entering the competition for theater donors. Grossman says the organization will step away from any offered contribution if there is any indication that it would drain support from a theater company.

The thrust of TheatreWashington’s pitch has appeal for some longtime local benefactors, such as Jaylee Mead, who, among other gifts made with her late husband Gilbert, gave $35 million for Arena Stage’s redevelopment. “I think we’re moving in the right direction, and we need to move further, faster,” she says. “We have a lot of theater here. All we need is publicity.”

TheatreWashington’s first order of business is its Web site, which includes a search function that lets users put in their theater preferences and price points, and find shows around the region that satisfy their requirements.

Time will tell if TheatreWashington becomes the catalytic force its creators have in mind. Victor Shargai, who chairs the Helen Hayes Awards and will move to the board of TheatreWashington, says his hope is that the group can look into other initiatives, such as a health insurance plan for actors who lack coverage.

“I’m really bored with people who, when you ask them, ‘Do you go to the theater?,’ they say, ‘Oh yeah, we go up to New York two or three times a year.’ Washington is a theater town, and I feel no hesitation whatsoever saying that the quality of theater in Washington can stand up to any city in the world.”