SECOND ACT
Dancap impresario Aubrey Dan teams up with an old rival as he makes his return to Toronto theatre scene,
“The objective was always to send people to the heavens.” AUBREY DAN HEAD OF DANCAP PRODUCTIONS
Seeing Aubrey Dan without his trademark cap is, admittedly, something of a letdown.
The Toronto financier and philanthropist so closely branded his persona as the head of Dancap Productions (with a cartoon cap prominently in the logo) that acquaintances come to expect all the flair and showmanship that a fedora-wearing theatre impresario seemed to promise.
“The hat became something of an identity,” says Dan in an interview. “It was a bit of a pun, really. I happen to wear a cap, but really the cap in Dancap stands for capital, as in capital markets. But the image just made sense.”
In casual clothes and comfy shoes, no one will mistake Dan for the son of a billionaire. But the hat was the giveaway that there was something special brewing underneath that asset manager demeanour.
That sense of occasion is something that Dan had tried to inject into the Toronto theatre scene with blockbuster shows such as Jersey Boys and South Pacific.
He was also big on customer service. It wasn’t unusual for Dan to greet guests at the door or even give patrons a call at home upgrading them to a better seat.
But Dancap wasn’t exactly a profit centre: by some estimates Dan lost as much as $40 million in his venture before closing up shop in 2012. Luckily, this wasn’t his day job. He runs a successful privateequity firm. His father, Leslie Dan, is a legend in the pharmaceutical business, with a net worth of more than $1 billion, according to Canadian Business magazine.
But for Dan, 53, theatre remains his passion.
“The objective was always to send people to the heavens. Give them a journey. Take them for a ride. It’s the antidote for the digital world,” he says.
In the last few years, after his productions went dark, Dan kept himself busy with his finance company and philanthropy.
The Queen’s University music and drama school was renamed the Dan School of Drama and Music last year after a $5-million donation. His daughter is a graduate.
His alma mater at Western University renamed the management program Dan Management and Organizational Studies after another $5-million gift. Both schools combine his love for arts and business.
But now Dan is attempting his own revival. First, on May 23, he has a co-production with the Harold Green Jewish Theatre of The Jazz Singer in the10th anniversary season of the company. That will be his initial foray back into the theatre scene in more than four years.
“I can’t sing or act. But to me there is this magic of theatre, this weird chemistry between audience and actors that I really love,” Dan says.
Dan says he was intrigued by the reimagining of Samson Raphaelson’s short story, written in 1922. It was a chance to have input in reworking the story, based on the life of Al Jolson. The musical tells the enduring tale of the deep conflict between a son’s passion for Broadway and his father’s wish for him to be a cantor. It was perhaps most famously made into the first talking picture, starring Jolson.
“With Jersey Boys we got to change one line. We were allowed to put ‘Medicine Hat’ in the script to make it more Canadian. This is a chance to really try something new and go a little deeper,” Dan says.
That’s the first significant step back to the land of theatre. The second act is perhaps more intriguing. Because Dan, after bitterly fighting for control of the Toronto theatre market with Mirvish Productions, is now a partner with his former competitor in a co-production of An American in Paris slated for March of 2018.
The Tony Award-winning musical is about an American soldier and a mysterious French woman, with songs by George and Ira Gershwin. One assumes it must have taken some serious Gene Kelly-style tap dancing to get the two to join forces.
Many in the theatre community still remember the 2008 court battle against Mirvish Productions and U.S.-based Key Brand Entertainment over the sale of the Canon and Panasonic theatres to Mirvish. Dan unsuccessfully tried to block the sale. The theatres would have been his toehold in the business, meaning he would no longer have to rent space.
That was the beginning of the end for Dan. Without a functioning theatre of his own, he was at the mercy of landlords, making it tougher to schedule performances.
But now he and Mirvish are, if not firm friends, at least business partners, something that few in the industry would have imagined.
“It was a lesson learned,” Dan says about the court case. “I’ve also learned that life is short. And David and I have more in common than not. We share the love of theatre. We have a mutual respect. He is the senior statesman of theatre. His father (Ed Mirvish) is iconic. It’s a wonderful combination. It’s very unusual for two theatre producers to collaborate in one city when there is typically only one.”
The always diplomatic Mirvish, meanwhile, says the past conflict is all water under the bridge.
“We’re not looking backwards. We’re looking forward to what will make Toronto a great theatre city,” he says in an interview. “I’m glad that we’re working together.”
Certainly, a collaboration between the scions of two prominent and wealthy Toronto business owners seems something of a dream matchup. And there is optimism in the theatre community the partnership will fund other projects.
“At this point, Canada does not have commercial theatre producers outside the Mirvishes. It’s just a very expensive product to produce,” says Michael Rubinoff, head of the Canadian Music Theatre Project at Sheridan College. “To have two producers of this stature teaming up and injecting capital is good news.”
Rubinoff hopes any future collaborations “spin off” into the production of new Canadian musicals.
“It’s great when they bring touring American or British productions, which allows Canadians to showcase their talents. And hopefully this will also allow the development of new unique Canadian work,” Rubinoff says. “Theatre is extremely risky to produce and we’re glad that David and Aubrey continue to take the risks they have taken and continue to take.”
In reality, this was not about two hard-nosed businessmen suddenly wanting to make good. Rather, it was about risk mitigation. Or as Rubinoff says, “A good deal will bring good businessmen together.”
Mirvish is the first to say he is “pleased to see other people shoulder some of the risk.”
Whether Dan can make a financial go of the theatre business a second time around remains to be seen. But perhaps the bottom line is not necessarily top of mind in his return engagement. Like Garth Drabinsky’s Livent, Dancap was an ambitious theatre company that tried to go head-to-head with Mirvish for domination of the city’s theatre market.
After a bruising battle for market share with Mirvish, Livent collapsed in 1998. Drabinsky would eventually face a multi-year sentence for fraud.
Dancap was partly a victim of a vicious economic downturn that slashed tourism. Today, only Mirvish is left standing as a fully fledged theatrical company. But the theatre bug is hard to extinguish.
Drabinsky mounted a comeback this year with Sousatzka. But reviews were not kind and a hoped-for Broadway run may not be in the cards.
Dan is still mounting his comeback, this time by joining his former competitor.
“He’s extremely passionate about the theatre and he’s caught that disease we all have for the business,” Mirvish says.
The collaboration came about, says Dan, after he was deliberating about what to do with An American in Paris, for which he had the Canadian rights. One of his producers suggested teaming up with Mirvish.
“I thought about it for a nanosecond,” he says.
“Two former competitors coming together. We can share in the risk. But more importantly we get a show that may not have come to Toronto.”
Dan put out a call and met with John Karastamatis, Mirvish director of sales and marketing, about the possibility.
Later Dan got a call from his father, who had been sitting beside Mirvish at a luncheon.
“He says, ‘David was very nice and says you’re going to be working together on a show.’ At that point we haven’t met or signed the deal yet. So I call up David and say, ‘If you’re going to have lunch with my dad, maybe we should have lunch.’ And it turned out great.”
So far relations have been “very collegial and optimistic,” according to Dan.
And he’s not ruling out future collaborations.
But there’s still a year to go before the premiere. Will there be a clash of egos?
Dan is adamant this is not about any one individual.
“If you hold an emotional grudge you will never go forward,” he says. “It’s not about ego. It’s not about me. If we didn’t do this together Toronto would lose. And at this point, it’s really about bringing great theatre to the city. Period.”
The Jazz Singer is at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St., May 23 to June 18. See hgjewishtheatre.com or call 1-855-985-2787.
Collaboration between the scions of two prominent and wealthy Toronto business owners seems something of a dream matchup