Listen to the Podcast About ProArts Playhouse
Podcast Summary
Lin McEwan, the executive director of ProArts Playhouse in Kihei, shared her journey from Baltimore to Maui with Jake Carter on the Felix and Fingers podcast. With a background in performing arts, Lin highlighted how ProArts Playhouse offers a diverse array of events, including music, dance, theater, comedy, and Hawaiian arts and culture series. The venue collaborates with charities to host events like talent shows for adults with disabilities, fostering community engagement.
Discussing current trends in the event industry, Lin noted the unique challenges and opportunities in Maui post-COVID, emphasizing the importance of offering varied programming to attract audiences. She mentioned the resilience of ProArts Playhouse in adapting to the changing landscape of theater and event hosting, showcasing a model of success based on versatility and community partnerships.
Lin also touched on the creative strategies businesses employed during the pandemic, illustrating the need for adaptability and innovation. When asked about booking events at ProArts Playhouse, Lin highlighted the importance of engaging with the venue in a professional manner and avoiding cringe-worthy behaviors. She shared humorous anecdotes about unusual requests and memorable moments at events, showcasing the vibrant and dynamic nature of the theater scene in Maui.
Overall, the interview with Lin McEwan offered valuable insights into the evolving event industry landscape and the unique position of ProArts Playhouse in Kihei. With a commitment to diversity, community involvement, and artistic expression, ProArts Playhouse continues to be a hub for creativity and collaboration in Maui’s cultural scene.
This interview was provided by Felix and Fingers Dueling Pianos.
Podcast Transcript
Mike Potts (00:23)
This is Felix and Fingers. I am Jake Carter with Felix and Fingers. Thank you for joining the podcast. This is Lin McEwen, the executive director of Pro Arts Playhouse in Kihei here. Thank you so much. You have a very impressive background in bio. You came from Baltimore, graduated from Vanderbilt, spent a bunch of time in New York working in performing arts.
Eventually went to the Caribbean loved island life and then ended up on Maui is what it looks like and then you just all of your Your hobbies include all of the normal Maui things, you know, like slicing coconuts on the side of the road is you know, basically we can just leave it at that All the things that one Like if you if you flip on Maui, you’re probably gonna be taking advantage of all the beautiful scenery and all that. Yes going to the ocean going outside. Yeah, I
All of those things. Everything that you would think that goes on in Maui, just those things. And then I worked indoor all day in theater. So yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And Pro Arts is a theater in Kihei. So I just put that out there. Yeah. So to start this, we’re going to go through a bunch of questions. I’m going to ask you kind of these rapid fire questions and then feel free to respond with how you, what your experience has been. So the first question is What current trends are you seeing in the event industry? It’s actually,
particularly interesting because I think that as a venue on Maui, we’re a bit of a microcosm of what’s going on all over the world, but at the same time, there’s certain things that are very specific to being here on Maui. I think everybody after COVID had a hard time kind of coming back in general. We actually did not really have that so much in our case because I think that on Maui with the fact that we are more insular,
people wanted so much to get out after COVID and such that there was a bit more up a bounce back here than some other spots because there’s only so many things that you can do. Whereas on the mainland when you have so, so many things, I think it’s a little bit different. That said, there have been a lot of spots closing and stuff. So we’ve been very lucky. We have a lot of diverse programming. I do think that that is a part of the trend in general. I think that finding ways to do as much as possible within what you do.
is proving to be the most successful model these days. And in that sense, we are definitely with that trend. We do a really broad number of events. We rent out the space, of course, to some degree, largely that we do co -productions. We have music, dance, theater, comedy, Hawaiian arts and culture series. We work with a lot of charities to put on their events at almost no cost to them. For instance, we’re doing a talent show.
of adults with disabilities to allow them to share their talents with the community as well. We’re doing that in partnership with Kalima O’Maui. So having a diverse array of things is seeming to be kind of the way to go because it is tricky, particularly in theater. Theater is proving a little tricky these days with getting audiences out.
Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I think that we saw that like throughout COVID just in general, everyone got really creative. Like all of a sudden you had restaurants that were like, we’re gonna sell jam. Like, we’re selling packages of pasta. Like people did so many random things. So I think that is very much something that makes sense. Like, every business got really creative. So yes. Yeah. So next question, What are things that people booking an event, like with you should never do? And what are the most
cringe -worthy things that you’ve ever seen at your events? Like, what is the one thing that really stood out? Oh, that’s so funny. Actually, you know what, in general, as far as like actually booking, and do you mean booking events or booking seats with us? Seats for our existing… Booking events. So if someone came to you and was like, hey, I want to do a show, what is something that they should never do? If it’s booking an event for something like we sometimes host HOA meetings or things like that,
or if it’s a package thing we’ve had people have anniversary parties here, birthday parties and such. That’s a pretty straightforward thing. You know what you’re putting on, you bring it in, you come in. What I usually say, I wouldn’t say there’s very rarely cringe -worthy things, but I would say – Oh, you’re lying. I know that there is. I will just say prepare, prepare, prepare is the biggest thing. And know that however well prepared you are,
things are still going to go wonky. Somebody that you’re depending on is going to be late. Something’s going to happen where some part of the food delivery doesn’t happen. There’s going to be some crazy thing that happens with somebody in your event where they don’t know how to speak properly into a microphone or all these things that you have to leave a lot of room for the unexpected and be able to take it in stride and pivot and just kind of take it as, hey, it’s all gonna work out. I always say my…
the most accurate thing about putting on events, particularly theater in general, is this little scene in Shakespeare in Love, and I’m gonna paraphrase where they say, it’s just, let me explain to you something about the theater. It is an endless series of accidents on the way to disaster. And he says, what can I do about it? Nothing, somehow it all turns out well. How? It’s a mystery. Like that is one of those things, you know, just knowing that, holding it lightly of events are made for enjoyment and, and,
You know, it’s meant to be an experience for people. There’s really no downside. Even when there’s a hiccup, nobody’s suffering hugely or anything. Just take it all as a part of the joy of the experience. Take it as part of the roller coaster. There’s a lot of things that can happen. But guess what? In the end, it all turns out well. Yeah. I mean, and I think that what you’re getting at does speak a lot to the shows that you put on because you’re dealing with people that are doing planned shows. This isn’t, you know, I’m sure…
Would you be open to doing a wedding or something like that? Like a corporate event if someone reached out to you? Yes, we’ve had corporate events. We’ve had anniversary parties, birthday parties, memorials even. We’ve had people use our screen to do sort of an in -memoriam scroll and things like that. We’ve definitely had that. Yeah, I would love to see somebody get married on the pro -art stage. That would be awesome. That’s not happened and that would be great. Yeah. I mean, the reason I brought that up is because I was just like, well, I guess it’s a little bit different. Like,
talking about cringe -worthy events and things that happen at a wedding where, you know, the awkward uncle stands up and starts giving a speech versus like a planned show. Like the cringe -worthiness is a little bit different when you kind of know what’s gonna happen, you know? I guess that is true. Yeah, I would definitely say for me, it’s probably just when people are like talking about things and sometimes you’ll literally hand somebody a microphone and be like, you need to use this. And they do the entire thing with the microphone like down here at their ankle. And they’re literally, people are shouting from the audience of,
We can’t hear you. We can’t hear you. Amen. I love that. I love that even in a theater, you understand the pain when you when you have to give someone a wireless mic and you’re just like, hey, you hold this next to your face. That’s how it works.
So to go from most cringe -worthy thing, what is the most unique or like fun idea that you’ve seen at an event or show or something that’s new for you guys? Oh, wow. OK.
Probably, I would say, one of my absolute favorite events that we’ve ever had was this group, Kufnats and Christina Lee. So it’s a duo. And it’s a hip hop artist with a harpist. And it’s one of those things where we were working with Hana Arts, with Becky from Hana Arts. They were also hosting them down in Hana. And they came, and we didn’t know exactly what it was going to be. And they made a truly mixed media experience.
there was all sorts of things happening and we’re not really a venue where dancing, it’s not really set up so much, but the audience could not contain themselves. It was one of the most, you know those kind of things where you just get chicken skin the whole time. It was like that, the way that they use the space and stuff and everybody was just on their feet, just dancing around the entire space, like moving around gradually. It wasn’t like, you know, mosh pit or anything like that, because that’s difficult in our space. But,
I just really love when you bring in something unexpected and you get the audience to enjoy something that they’ve never seen before, that they’ve never heard, just trying to go a little outside of the box with the content. And it fused this really fascinating group. It was such a
mixed group of people here. There were people who love classical music who were here for the harp. There’s people who love rap and hip -hop and who were here for that. And then there were just people who were, I think, here out of curiosity. And then there was people who just trust pro -arts and know that if we’re gonna put something on, it’s probably gonna be a lot of fun. And they came out for that. So that’s definitely one of my favorite moments ever. I also just love completely random things where…
members of the audience decide to, like, we had two people start tangoing in the middle of the aisle once because there was a tango on stage for one of our variety burlesque shows. There was a tango on stage and people started tangoing up and down the aisle. This one couple did this beautiful tango in concert with what was happening up on stage and that was very cool. Not to say that I’m always like, get up out of this, like, sometimes you can’t do that. There’s a lot happening in performances, but it’s usually a lot of those beautiful impromptu moments that inspire me the most.
Yes, yeah, I mean, it’s that is always super fun when you get just like the random, really fun audience people that like do it well and do it right. I just played a show recently and I don’t I don’t exactly remember what song it was, but but me and my my dueling partner are playing the song and we’re facing each other. So behind me, directly behind me, I cannot see them at all. There are people singing in full three part harmony correctly and loud.
directly behind me and I’m like hearing them singing all of the backup parts and I had to stop. I literally stopped the show and I was like, okay, wait a second. Who are you? Like, I have to look like this is you guys are killing it. I don’t know who you are, but like this is amazing. And you know, everyone, we love when people sing, but it was just like, I was stopped for a second and I actually just got the videos back and I looked through them.
and one of the other songs and like watching the video and these this one table of people were so loud singing such perfect three -part backup harmony it’s actually one of the guys in one of your shows funny crossing of worlds um they’re they’re doing so well that you can hear them singing the backup three -part harmony with us with mics i was like oh my gosh like this is crazy i love that that’s fabulous yeah i
i forget
Forget his name, I just found this out, but he was rehearsing there last night in the new show that you guys have coming up. Oh, okay. It was maybe Charles Cook, maybe. Charles, yeah, that is who it was. It was a table with Charles. There you go. So, funny crossing of worlds. Yeah, he’s playing in Kinky Boots, which, yeah, he’s gonna be super hot. Yes. He’s wonderful.
Okay, so any advice you can offer for someone that’s just starting to get ready to put together a show or an event and they’re just beginning with doing something like that? I would say plan, plan, plan and talk to people who do what you want to do and ask them what are the pitfalls? What are the tricky parts? What do I need to leave room for? And then leave room for more.
Always plan like that it’s going to everything’s going to take twice as long as you think it’s going to take Just out of it and it’s not just Maui it is it is you know But maybe a little bit exacerbated by the fact that and I don’t mean that in a bad way I actually love that the pace of Maui it’s a little bit different, but it does mean like, you know, and also things happen like, you know,
we get any rain in Kihei and road shuts down and you’re not getting anywhere for 45 minutes. So, no, I’m exaggerating, but I’m just giving an example. Oh, I mean, it depends on the amount of rain. Sometimes it’s 45 minutes would be nice. Sometimes it’s a couple of days. Yes, exactly. I always try to explain to people that don’t live there. Yeah, exactly. If it rains, everything closes. So that’s it. If it rains really hard, no one goes to work. Everyone just goes.
And it doesn’t happen very often that that’s the reaction is like, oh, OK. But well, at least in Kihei, the rest of the island, yeah, it rains a lot. In Kihei, it barely rains. Yeah, I would say to do that. And honestly, I genuinely think that the best advice to anybody is to just come into whatever you’re doing with just a really positive attitude and take anything that happens in stride and, again, know that it’ll be OK. And.
like appreciate what the people in your team are bringing, but also hold your expectations of like, okay, you’re gonna need to adjust things as, hey, this measures up with my expectation, this is a little bit different and bring together, like work hard to bring together the best of what everybody in your team putting it together can bring and figure out what everyone’s strengths are and lean into that and then figure out how to compliment that. And that’s how you’re gonna get.
through things best of like trying to get people to do something they don’t want to do is not fun and usually antithetical to the purpose of what you’re trying to get done. Like just figure out what everybody members on your team are best at and what they enjoy and are going to give their all to and do that. And then figure out if the role of the producer at least or the event coordinator to me is to do that and then fill in the holes and make it all work together as a whole. Yeah.
And I’m really lucky that I have an incredible team working with me on pretty much every event. Even I’ve got an amazing regular staff and then a lot of wonderful complimentary contractors who come in and out of events. And I’m extremely, extremely lucky in that regard. Um, but yeah, keep communication with your team, clear communication with your team. Totally. And I think, I mean, to summarize what I hear, what you just said kind of goes along with what I hear from a lot of people. And it is basically don’t do an event alone.
You can’t do it all. Like you’re not going to be able to do it all well. Oh, look, I made a little thumbs up and also hire people that do that thing. Well, like your brother’s aunt’s cousin that you met yesterday out walking on the street is probably not the best person that you should hire to be a florist. Like that’s just you got to specialize and use those people that are going to do things well. So, yeah, and we have traits like we’ve got amazing vendors and.
trades folks and all the things here, we’ve got a really amazing level of talent on Maui, so might as well make use of it. Exactly. Yeah. So what makes your venue and like pro -arts special versus anywhere else? Do you know, it’s funny when I, I, the,
impression that I get from people who walk in and not just the impression but okay, the actual the feedback I will just say is that more than anything it’s the vibe in here and that sounds like a wishy -washy thing to say but it’s actually very hard to cultivate to actually have it work out where what you’re doing is where people feel that the events are well coordinated together that you’re showing a really diverse array of events and that when you’re walking you’re welcomed that
that it is a positive experience, that everybody’s excited to be here, that you’re going to see something that is of very high quality and that people care about. And I’m not saying that that doesn’t exist other places, but what I have been told is that we do a good job of that that comes across to the audience as well. And I think it’s a lot about intention, you know, of we really mean to be a community space.
the stage belongs to the community. We take that very literally. And we take the pro in our name very seriously of we do want to pay everyone involved who wants to be paid. There’s some members of the community who are literally like, hey, I’m retired and I want to help out. And that’s wonderful that they’re bringing that to the table. But I’m really setting that intention of that we want people to feel appreciated for their work.
We want the artists to be appreciated. We want anybody who’s coming in and presenting to feel that they have the opportunity to do so at the best of their ability. Even if it’s just, even if it’s we have the, we now have the Kihei Community Association makes their place here. They feel like that has kind of elevated their game a little bit. They now have, you know, a truly professional setting in which to host their meetings, several HOA meetings.
are now taking place here in order. And it’s that sense of comfort and ease and welcome when you come in. And that’s something we’ve worked really, really hard to cultivate. And to make that accessible across as much of the population as possible, we’re always working on making things more inclusive, more accessible. We’re actually hosting a, did I hear you say this? I don’t think so. We’re hosting a talent show that we’re working with the folks from Kalima O’Maui to present a talent show for adults with disabilities. We’re doing,
We had an inclusive, a sensory -friendly version of our Christmas play. We’re trying to make things successful. And I think those kind of things actually filter across everything, even if people don’t know it and they feel it like just that sense of welcome more than anything and professionalism when you walk in as much as we can. Yeah, I totally agree. I’ve been to shows. I’ve worked with you, obviously, and seen the space. And it is a really comfortable, very friendly thing. And everyone there does seem that way. You walk in and it’s like everyone there is actually like,
Hey, we’re best friends. Like we all know each other, which maybe it’s just me that doesn’t know all of them, but it’s always like a different group and everyone is just like, Hey, you know, how are you enjoying the show? Like at intermissions and stuff. And it’s just this very warm and welcoming kind of environment while also still being a really cool theater. Like I told you about when I’ve seen shows, like very impressed with the kind of shows and the kind of programming that you guys do. It’s amazing. And I always hear like friends that are like, Hey, let’s go, let’s go see this. Let’s do that. Um,
I think the last couple questions before we get into the speed round about logistics here, which I think you kind of just talked about, are how you serve the community and what upcoming shows you have scheduled. So tell me some about that. So we really do try to have a really broad array. Just in the next week, we have tonight, we’ve got a sold out show for John Cruise. John Cruise is with us twice a month. Then this weekend, we have a belly dance show on Saturday. We are.
closed on Sunday for once because I do not feel like competing with anybody’s Super Bowl parties. We’ve tried that before. It does not work. The whole planet goes and does that. But we’ve got, for instance, a celebration of International Women’s Day with women reading stories of their experience. That’s a storytelling thing. We’ve got Craig Gass, who is a nationally broadcast comedian. He’s been on a lot of shows like Family Guy and such. He’s playing on Wednesday. We’ve got…
local troops of improv comedians and stand -up comedians. We have groups like Cheryl Renee, she’s an artist who’s up in Napeali. She comes down and does a tribute show every month. And this month she’s doing a celebration of Black History Month by paying tribute to Billie Holiday with Joy Yasha on saxophone. Amy Hanai -Ali ‘i is gonna be here, who is the top female Hawaiian recording artist of all time.
She’s going to be here with us both this month and next month for shows. And then we of course have our array of theatrical events. Our next big one is Kinky Boots, which I mentioned that’s going to be going up on March 15th. Like I said, we try to give back to make sure that the space is affordable for community groups like the Kihei Community Association. We’re going to be hosting, Maui AIDS Foundation will be putting up a celebration of trans visibility day in March. We try to make it, yeah, a space that when folks want to rent,
that it is for nonprofits, we do discounts for nonprofits. We try to make it affordable for folks to do things. And then we try to largely work with artists as co -productions in order to get as much of the money back in the artist’s hands. Because particularly after the fire, so many of our artists were really, particularly musicians were really impacted by losing a lot of the places that they play, even those who didn’t actually lose their homes, which a lot did. But…
but so many folks really lost a lot of their opportunity to play. So we just try and put as much of the money back into the hands of the artists themselves. And to create great work opportunities for our youth to get to learn how to do this in complementing with learning how to work in the film industry and such, because we’ve got so much talent, they have to be able to make a living here doing those things in order to stay on island. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like you said, you really take the pro and community thing seriously. You really do give back. And I…
Your programming sounds amazing. I think everyone should go and see it. I know that you’ve done a bunch of things for musicians and let people come in that lost their houses, come in and watch shows for free as a place just to see. And you’ve had all kinds of like fundraisers for people, for musicians and instruments and all those things. You guys have done amazing. I forgot to mention our Access For All. Access For All if you know it.
listening, know somebody who has displaced through the end of the, we’ve actually, thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, Arnold Jacobson and Jennifer Myers, we’ve actually been able to extend that program where through the end of the season in June, we’re actually giving, still giving unlimited free tickets away to anyone displaced by the fires. That’s amazing. Yeah. So the last speed round of stuff, and you can just be quick and short with these. This is just general things with booking, booking the rev, booking your venue. What is the current availability? How far in advance do you have to book?
For daytime events, we have a large amount of availability for evenings. We are booked out through June. Oh, wow. That’s amazing. Look at you. That’s great. What kind of flexibility do you have with guest count? Because I know in case it changes, I know you guys have 110, I think, is what you wrote down. We do 110 seating. If you’ve got a big crew and such involved, we need to consider that. We can usually fit about up to about 15 to 20 people in addition to the actual seating. If.
It is a standing room event. We can potentially do that. And then our capacity actually goes up for everyone in the building. It goes up to 180. However, there is an additional fee for us having to move all of our seating into our dressing room. So that’s another consideration. That is cool though, because you guys could do like kind of corporate kind of events and like parties like that in there. That’d be super cool. So what is the average event size and cost at your venue plus mandatory gratuity if that’s relevant and.
Yeah, average event size and cost for booking it about. Got it. Average event size is probably, I would say probably about 80 people most generally. Our cost, it does depend on the day. It is a sliding scale depending on daytime events are cheaper than evening events. They go anywhere honestly from $250 upfront, the base price of the venue up to 500. And then it adds on.
We keep it very a la carte so that it is only as expensive as you need it to be. There is an inherent house manager fee, however many hours you need that you use the space. The staff is then allotted, the house manager fee is $25 an hour. If you need tech people, they are anywhere from $25 an hour to 300 for the per diem, depending on what kind of tech you need and who it is. And then there are things like if you need to use the projector, if you need to use just different parts of the theater, if you need.
more intense lighting and you need it actually programmed, there are additional little fees, but we try and keep it very a la carte so that if you are doing something straightforward, you’re doing, you just need a microphone, you need a basic lighting wash on the stage, and you’re just basically presenting something simple, it can be very affordable for a daytime event of three or four hours. It can be as cheap as maybe like 300, 350 something in that range if it’s a straightforward, simple event. Wow, that’s awesome.
And yeah, very a la carte, very full service because you are a theater. So you already have all of the fun, fun things to play with. Do you have a deposit amount and what is that and what is your cancellation policy? We usually do accept a 50 % deposit. And unfortunately, because of how booked we are, we do usually I’ve never had it where anybody had to cancel. If there are extreme circumstances, we will give back a deposit if there is some sort of, you know, COVID. What happened with the fires and such?
What we really look to is rescheduling primarily in that. If it is something where we have to have a full cancellation, typically we do keep the deposit unless it is some sort of an extraordinary act of God kind of clause, in which case we return it because we don’t want you to be penalized for anything more than like any fee that was involved with it, like a credit card fee or something. We will return that. Yeah. Do you have in -house catering or do people need to provide their own? And…
Do you have a preferred vendor list and are people required to use them? We do not have in -house catering. We do have, if you have something where you literally are having people here and you just want them to have the flexibility of being able to use our water filter and to select from our concessions, they can simply buy that. And then we just either ask for a little something from, we do a charge on unlimited water from our water filter or people, you can just literally have people throw us a dollar per refill of their own water bottle.
As far as full catering goes, we do have some suggestions to give. That list is evolving a bit because a lot of businesses are changing and moving around in Kihei right this moment, but we do have some suggestions. And if it is a daytime thing where you’re simply looking for something like malasadas and coffee, there are within walking distance of this place, incredible right next door, best malasadas on the island at a homemade cafe. And then there are a bunch of coffee spots that you can arrange with very early to do pickups.
three within walking distance, and I mean, within a block. Yeah, yeah. There’s a bunch of really awesome places right around you. So I’m sure that that’s who you use. I know they’re all great. Working solid does great catering. It depends on, yeah, but we do have a good list of folks who we suggest. Awesome. So I know that because you guys are a theater, obviously you have backstage and you have back changing rooms and all of that kind of stuff for people to utilize if they needed that.
It’s inside so you don’t have the weather concerns and I know that you have a massive parking lot So I know that you’re good on all of those things How early do you need vendors to arrive to set up if they were gonna do a one -day event like that? And is there an event coordinator or manager other than yourself or are you the event coordinator and manager? For an event like that. I am usually the event coordinator on any new events once if it’s something where it happens on the regular
like for instance, a regular A -Show meeting or something, I might eventually pass that on to a producer once we have all of that established. If it is a one -time event, I usually suggest at least one meeting in the week preceding, usually one meeting right towards the beginning of at least over Zoom to just talk about everything, then one meeting within the week of to make sure that we’re good on tech setup. Unless it is a truly you’re walking up and you’re just standing in front of microphones, that’s fine. But if you need any sort of coordination with.
video, all those kind of things. I like to have an in -person meeting at some point, and also just for you to get the layout of the land during the week proceeding. And then I usually suggest about an hour ahead of the event itself, unless you have a lot of particular things. Sometimes folks like to bring in a whole lot of their own stuff. And then I suggest a little bit earlier than that, maybe up to two hours. But we’re pretty quick on transitions around here. We’re pretty, we can make this place, transform this place very quickly.
That’s how a theater works. Yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much for doing this podcast. I appreciate it. Is there anything else that you wanted to say or talk about before we finish this? I will just say just because you mentioned of the facility stuff, we do have a handicap accessible restrooms at our disposal. They are just outside of the building. And also, if you do decide to have an event, we are an intimate space, but we do have use of the outside area right outside for things like registrations and stuff like that. But otherwise, no, I’m
just super grateful.
Thank you so much for having me on. And yeah, any questions, just reach out to us at [email protected] or go to ProArtsMaui.org or call us at 808 -463
Thank you so much, Lin. I appreciate it. And I will, I’m sure see you soon and see some of these shows. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Jake. Bye. Thank you.
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