Argenta Community Theater nabs Vereen for reopening
Need somebody to pull in a bigname celebrity for your celebratory gala? Michael Marion is a good person to have in your corner.
Marion, who by day is general manager of North Little Rock’s Simmons Bank Arena, took over a few months ago as board chairman of North Little Rock’s Argenta Community Theater after theater co-founder Judy Tenenbaum stepped down.
When co-founder and producing artistic director Vincent Insalaco asked Marion to see if he could corral actor-singer-dancer Ben Vereen for the theater’s grand reopening get-together this week, “I told him, ‘Hey, we could try,’” he recalls.
Marion had the right contacts in the business, including a former agent who knew Vereen’s manager.
Bingo. Vereen will be on hand
for the party, which gets underway at 7 p.m. Tuesday with an outdoor banquet at the Argenta Plaza at 510 Main St., North Little Rock.
The connection: Vereen won a Tony Award for his performance as the Leading Player in the original Broadway production of “Pippin”, which debuted in 1972. And “Pippin” is the Argenta theater’s season reopener, with friends-and-family preview performances Wednesday and Thursday, opening night on Friday and running through Aug. 28 (dark on Mondays). All performances are at 7:30 p.m. except for a 2 p.m. Aug. 22 matinee.
The theater is billing the celebration as “reminiscent of the theater’s original Grand Opening Dinner in 2010 [that] featured former President Bill Clinton.”
“You only get to have one grand opening unless you live through a pandemic and then you get to have two,” Insalaco observes.
The event, presented by the Tenenbaum Foundation, will include the seated dinner; the presentation of the “Power of Community Award” to Inviting Arkansas owner and publisher Michelle Towne “for her decades-long service to the Arkansas nonprofit community”; and performances by the “Pippin” cast, Ballet Arkansas and Arkansas Circus Arts.
A pre-dinner cocktail reception for sponsors and VIP table purchasers takes place on the Sky Deck of the adjacent 610 Main building, sponsored by the North Little Rock Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, Taggart Architects and the Arkansas Automobile Dealer’s Association.
Marion’s Argenta Community Theater connection actually goes back to before it opened. He worked with the architects to design the interior of the building at 405 Main in the midst of the Argenta District.
When Insalaco asked if he’d be willing to head up the theater’s board of directors, Marion thought it was a no-brainer.
“Vince has always been the heart and soul of this operation,” he says. “So when he called and asked me if I would be willing to serve, I said, ‘Sure, I’d be glad to.’
“I’m a pretty good organizer, a sort of boots-on-the-ground guy.”
He’s also a longtime theater fan, taking every chance (at least before the pandemic) to get to New York and catch something on Broadway.
He has never, however, had a hankering to perform. “I never felt that was my talent,” he explains. “I’m a behind-the-curtain guy.”
Behind the curtain, Marion has been booking acts for more than four decades, starting with Billy Joel, whom he brought to his alma mater, Mississippi State University in Starkville, Miss., when he was a senior. He graduated in 1976 and went on to earn an MBA there in 1978.
He got to know the music industry during the six years he spent as an agent in Los Angeles and managed an arena in Tupelo, Miss., before taking the Arkansas job at what was then Alltel Arena in 1997 — before it was built.
The ACT season lineup continues with “Steel Magnolias” by Robert Harling, Sept. 16-26, in collaboration with the Acansa Arts Festival of the South; Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music,” Nov. 3-21, in collaboration with Wildwood Park for the Arts; “A Christmas Carol,” Judy B. Goss’ adaptation of the Charles Dickens tale, Dec. 8-18; Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music,” in collaboration with Opera in the Rock, Feb. 1-6; “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder, March 9-19; and “The Wizard of Oz,” April 27-May 7.
“Vince is doing what he and Judy were doing,” Marion says. Tenenbaum died in June at age 71. The theater had already been renamed in her honor — it’s officially the Judy Kohn Tenenbaum Argenta Community Theater.
Marion cites “great support from the community” as well as sponsors and area businesses for the theater’s decade of success — productions regularly sell out their entire runs — as well as the quality of its shows and its ability to attract top-level talent.
“It’s not your stereotypical community theater,” he says.