PAYING FOR THE ARTS, MAKING THE ARTS PAY

Paducah's effort mirrors Cape Girardeau's own needs for a performing arts center and for community theater space. Southeast Missouri State University President Dale Nitzschke has committed to finding the funding to build a performing arts center. Half the estimated $20 million would come from private sources.

The university has never received a $5 million donation from a single donor as Paducah's campaign did. Southeast's largest donation came in 1988, when Pepsi Cola Bottling of Marion, Ill., owned and operated by Harry L. and Rosemary Crisp, gave the university a bottling plant, grounds and adjacent properties in Malden.

The property, valued at more than $3 million, became the Crisp Bootheel Education Center.

T. Wayne Davenport, vice president of university advancement and executive director of the Southeast Missouri University Foundation, said small donors never will be able to underwrite a construction project of the size of a performing arts center.

"You have to look at a substantial portion of the construction costs coming from one or a small handful of donors," he said.

The bottom line begins to come into view when the university does its planning study. "We talk one on one with the individuals we're hoping to get money from," Davenport said.

What happened in Paducah could occur here as well, he said.

"When someone steps forward and builds the wagon, it's surprising how many people jump on.

"I think it would be the same in our situation if we're able to find an individual donor or small core of donors."

The search for funds from corporations and private foundations is a separate campaign, Davenport said.

He cites three factors in favor of building a performing arts center: improvement in the quality of life, the educational value for students both on and off the campus, and economic development.

The economic development boost a performing arts center gives a city has not been properly addressed yet, Davenport said.

Cape Girardeau's community theater, the River City Players, has lacked a permanent home for the past five years.

Ann Swanson, president of the River City Players board, said the organization has not asked the city for help finding a building and is not aware of any city-owned structures that would be appropriate. "I figure we probably don't have enough clout to get anywhere with them if we did," she said.

RCP can't afford to buy a building itself, Swanson said.

She said the membership has discussed the pros and cons of renting the old Broadway Theater, now closed, but concluded the building is too large for the theater group's purposes even if it were available.

Typical attendance for a RCP non-dinner theater production is 200. "That number probably would feel lost in the Broadway Theater," she said.

But since the gambling riverboats seem to have passed Cape Girardeau by, she wonders if some of the empty buildings downtown might now be available.