New theater launching at Seaport Museum

Phil Roy is not exactly an old salt.

Nor a sea-farin' man.

But he knows how to navigate choppy waters and have a good time doing it.

It was really a no-brainer for the 61-year-old impresario to snap up a five-year lease on the underused, often overlooked, 530-seat theater at the Independence Seaport Museum on Penn's Landing.

Best known in recent years for bringing such shows as Menopause the Musical and My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish & I'm in Therapy! to town, Roy and Dana Matthow, his New York-based producing partner of 20 years, decided it was time to drop anchor here.

"How can we not do this?" Matthow asked Roy after seeing the theater earlier this year. "This is what we do."

They agreed to take the lease, paying a year upfront as "a sweetener," and will bring their latest touring show, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up!, to the newly dubbed Penn's Landing Playhouse next month. Previews begin Sept. 18 for a run through the end of the year.

Roy - who lives in Queen Village when not on the road - is now in San Diego with the show, a comedy about marriage and all that, written by Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn (they're married, so they should know).

"In San Diego," Roy said in a phone interview from his condo overlooking the bay, "we're getting as many younger people in the audience in their 30s and 40s as our usual audience in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. That's good."

Roy has a number of what might be called ethnic comedies in his national touring repertoire. In his hometown of Philadelphia - where he launched Grendel's Lair cabaret on South Street back in the '70s and brought the band Renaissance to the United States (for $150 a night) - he has often booked them into the Society Hill Playhouse.

But, Roy said, the playhouse has not been available for the last few years.

"I can't wait for a theater to become available," he said. "In most cities, there's a dearth of small rentals, 300 to 500 seats. They don't exist, which is why, when we had the opportunity to rent a 500-seat theater, how could we not do it?"

Roy's theater deal also presented an opportunity for the seaport museum.

"The theater has always been underutilized," said museum chief executive John Brady. "I was talking to everyone I could think of" to book it.

The second-floor auditorium was built in 1976 as a music performance space and has been used largely by classical groups and presenters, most recently the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

Concerts number about a dozen a year, said Brady.

"Financially, it was awful," he said. "I've been looking around for ways to see if it could be used more."

Then Roy showed up, offering a lifeline for the struggling museum, which has suffered from funding and management difficulties in recent years.

Roy's deal, said Brady, "guarantees a certain amount of income," although Brady won't say exactly how much.

"The better he does," Brady said, "the better we do."

Roy, who also declined to be specific, said the first year's prepayment was "more money than they'd bring in in rentals in a year."

There are possibilities for packaging shows with museum tours and restaurant dinners, too, Brady said. Hotels in the area could offer a continuous turnover of potential audience members - and museum guests.

"So for us, it was nothing to lose," he said. "In a convoluted way, I think it could benefit us. It'll get the word out."

He also pointed out that the waterfront area was now, ever so slowly, becoming a performance district. Just a few blocks north, FringeArts is putting the finishing touches on its renovated space at Columbus Boulevard and Race Street.

"We'd like to see it all continue to build," said Brady, "and we'd like to take an active part."

The Seaport Museum's auditorium will require some changes, he said. Its band-shell stage will be altered, and theatrical lighting will be installed. But beyond that, it has "nice, big dressing rooms, seats - all the good stuff you need to do a show."

And there are large elevators to get theater-goers up to the second-floor space.

"This is a plus," Roy said, "a very big plus."