As producers and theater owners, they are not yet in the same league as the brothers Shubert or the Nederlander boys, and their enterprise has not yet resulted in a dynasty; but already the son-and-pop team of David and Edwin
”Honest Ed” Mirvish is beginning to become an influence in what audiences in England and North America see in the theater.
The Mirvishes, based in Toronto, are relative newcomers as theater producers. Ed Mirvish, 73, has owned the 1,500-seat Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto for 24 years, but before he bought the place (because he thought it was a bargain), he never went to the theater. His son David, 43, until recently was more interested in the visual arts than in theater, and for several years ran one of the smartest art galleries in Toronto.
In the last two seasons, however, the Mirvishes have emerged as producers of ambition and some daring. The Royal Alex, with its seven-play subscription series, has become a home for adventuresome bookings and a springboard for American tours; and the fabled Old Vic Theatre in London, which Ed bought five years ago, has just announced a 1988 season of seven plays under the artistic direction of the erratically brilliant Jonathan Miller.
Last year, the Mirvishes brought the East German Berliner Ensemble`s productions of two plays by Bertholt Brecht to Toronto for the company`s North American debut. Currently, through June 27, the Royal Alex is home to the North American debut of the new English Shakespeare Company. Next season, having already presented and toured director Brian Macdonald`s zippy production of ”The Mikado” in Canada and the United States, the Mirvishes are introducing Macdonald`s new version of another Gilbert and Sullivan standard, ”H.M.S. Pinafore,” also a prime candidate for touring (perhaps to Chicago, among other stops).
In England, the Old Vic is currently playing host to the Royal Shakespeare Company`s revival of the American musical ”Kiss Me, Kate,” which the Mirvishes co-produced. And, beginning in January, 1988, director Miller will offer an Old Vic season that includes such European exotica as Jean Racine`s ”Andromache” (1667), Alexander Ostrovsky`s ”Too Clever by Half”
(1868) and George Chapman`s ”Bussy d`Ambois” (1604).
As partners, the Mirvishes could not be more dissimilar in manner. Easygoing Ed speaks almost casually of the theater business. ”I told my wife,” he says, ”as long as you keep a theater locked up, you know how much it`s going to cost you. As soon as you open the doors, you never know.”
David, on the other hand, is perpetually intense. Dark-suited and soft-spoken, he discusses marketing techniques and his obligation ”to running our family business.” When he talks about theater, he speaks knowledgeably of the directors and stars now working in the business on both continents.
Still, for all their apparent outward differences, the Mirvishes work on the same wavelength, finishing sentences for each other and exchanging bits of information between themselves while they are conducting conversations with someone else on the telephone.
From the beginning, it has been Ed Mirvish`s amazing business success in Toronto retail and real estate that has allowed the theatrical enterprise to take off on its own.
A native Virginian who has spent most of his life in Toronto, he is known as Honest Ed, proprietor of a block-long discount store as famous for its promotions as for its values. Advertising ”four crooked floors of bargains” in its labryinthine innnards, the store has an exterior plastered with sayings that proclaim, ”Honest Ed has a pot belly! His bargains are way out in front!” Adjoining the discount store is a block-long group of shops, officially known since 1980 as Mirvish Village and home until its closing in 1978 of the David Mirvish Gallery. Next door to the Royal Alex is another string of buildings, all housing pre- and after-theater restaurants dubbed
”Old Ed`s,” ”Ed`s Italian,” ”Ed`s Chinese,” etc.
When Ed Mirvish purchased the Royal Alex in 1963, the venerable Victorian theater was dark most of the year and in danger of being demolished. Not wanting his bargain to be wasted, Ed went to New York on a shopping expedition. ”I talked to all the producers,” he says. ”I told them, `Give me a price, put on a profit for yourselves, and we`ll buy it.` I`m a storekeeper, and this seemed like simple good business to me. But none of them paid any attention to this guy from the Mounted Police and the igloos.” So, he started producing on his own, first with quickie stock productions and touring shows, building up his audience so that the Royal Alex now has a list of 45,000 subscribers and a season of seven plays, each running a minimum of six weeks.
In 1982, though he had never been to England, he spotted another bargain, the Old Vic, paid a little over $1 million for it, put out another $1 million for repairs, and started booking shows there. ”I had been telling my wife for 20 years what a lousy business theater was, and here I went and bought another theater. But I couldn`t resist. All the stars I knew spoke about the Old Vic as if it was some kind of temple.”
The Mirvish marketing techniques for their two theaters are quite different. In London, David says, ”We want to make the Old Vic a special place. If you want to see the singular theatrical vision of Jonathan Miller, you`ll have to go there.”
At home in Toronto, with their 45,000 subscribers, they reach for a wider audience, hoping to ”slip in” (as Ed says) a Shakespeare or a Brecht once a season. ”We`re always afraid of offending the subscriber,” Ed explains. Consequently, their 1987-88 subscription series at the Royal Alex is heavy on comedies and musicals. However, one of Miller`s Old Vic productions will be slipped in, and this season, for the first time, David has arranged to transfer a production from this summer`s Williamstown (Mass.) Theatre Festival.
The Mirvish rationale for producing their own shows again is eminently simple. ”I think we get better value,” David says. ”And we get better shows than the rest of what`s out there. There are no surprises for us. We don`t have producers calling us up to tell us that the show we had booked has fallen apart at the last minute.” For the moment, according to David, ”We`ll tour shows only if we can get a guaranteed return on our investment.”
Eventually, the Mirvishes say, they want to get their Royal Alex subscriptions up to a strong 50,000 per season. Then, they would further diversify in programming by building a smaller theater of 500 seats, and a larger auditorium of about 2,000 seats. Ed even talks of constructing a museum that would include David`s collection of 20th Century art.
”Dad always tells me that the theater is 90 percent talk and 10 percent what actually happens,” David says. ”And that`s about right. But I like it. I like being an independent. I like being involved at the inception of a show. It`s better business that way.”
