The Blaisdell Concert Hall has grossed nearly $1 million for the city since its reopening some four months ago, which has allowed lucrative Broadway productions and other shows to return to Honolulu, including “Six,” a rock concert musical about the six wives of Henry VIII that is making its first run in the state.
The national touring company production of “Six” opened Tuesday in the city’s recently renovated hall. It follows the Tina Turner biographical musical that played in April as well as the Hawai‘i Opera Theatre production of “Carmen.”
The Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra returned to the concert hall in March and will return in July and December. Broadway in Hawaii is bringing “Chicago” to the space Dec. 2 to 7.
Local businesses and performing arts companies, the city and state are benefiting from the direct and indirect economic impacts of these shows coming back to the concert hall, which reopened in March after 20 months of renovation work.
Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi said the improvements cost “just under $10 million” and that the money was well spent. The shopping list of improvements include safety and infrastructure upgrades, electrical and lighting enhancements, full replacement of the stage rigging, improved public and backstage facilities, a new fire suppression system, dressing room renovations, accessibility-compliant restrooms, and a new main stage proscenium and peripheral curtains.
“That $10 million was long overdue and long in coming because the stuff that we were removing went back 34 years and longer,” Blangiardi said. “In the last four months since we opened it up we’ve grossed slightly under $1 million. Historically, the concert hall has grossed about $1 million a year, so using $1 million a year as a baseline, and to extrapolate and say that (the renovations) are going to last more than 10 years, it’s a good return on investment.”
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He added, “It’s better for the performers, but it is also going to make for a much better audience experience, so we invested in the quality of the experience for the attendees all the way around, whether they’re performing or watching. Everybody benefits. People are entertained, and people are working.”
“Six,” by British playwrights Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, has been an audience favorite since its public debut in Scotland in 2017. It won the Tony Award for best original scorein 2022.
Imagine the six wives of Henry VIII — Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr — alive and well in the 21st century. They form a “girl group” — think the Spice Girls — and then compete among themselves to decide which one will become the lead singer.
The “winner” is the one who can convince the others that she had the worst experience as Henry’s wife.
Kevin McCollum, the show’s three-time Tony Award-winning producer, said it was the availability of the concert hall that made it possible to bring “Six” to Hawaii.
“Tours usually have certain rhythms, like 240 weeks a year from September to June, and then you take the middle to late summer off, and you start up again in September, like the school year,” he said. “So we ended this leg of the tour on the continental United States, we take two weeks to send everything to Hawaii, we play two weeks, and then we take two weeks to boat everything back because we don’t need the set and everything until September.”
McCollum said “Six” boosts the economy of every city it plays.
“We travel with just over 50 people, and all those people have to eat, and they have to have a place to stay, and they’re going to be going out (sightseeing). That’s one of the wonderful things about bringing the show to Hawaii. It’s also a wonderful way to end the show.”
“Six” is only the most recent production to use the renovated Blaisdell Concert hall. The Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra was the first arts group to return to the venue.
Amy Iwano, HSO president and CEO for nearly a year, said she was “pleasantly surprised” by her first time at the Blaisdell, the venue for the symphony’s Beethoven Festival, which played two concerts there in March.
“I thought the acoustics are really wonderful, but most importantly the stage fits our whole orchestra. So that’s the main impact on us — and also audience capacity; that’s another impact on us, the potential audiences reached, and of course, ticket revenue,” Iwano said.
She said HSO also used the hall as the venue for its concerts featuring video game music and three performances of “‘Star Wars: Return of the Jedi’ in Concert.”
Iwano added that HSO sold out the hall for “Beethoven Nine,” the final concert of its Beethoven festival, and that the “Star Wars” programs “also did really well.”
Richard Vida, executive director of Ballet Hawaii, said the ballet is coming back to the hall July 25 to do its Summer Intensive performance, “Reflections in Motion,” which is one of its biggest annual theatrical dance concerts, and is partnering with HSO to do “The Nutcracker” in December.
“At the concert hall, you’ve got enough room to do everything, room to move, and there’s enough dressing room space for 150 of our cast members,” Vida said.
The reopening of the hall also is a boon for Hawai‘i Opera Theatre.
HOT presented “Stuck Elevator,” a contemporary opera about a Chinese man who is the United States illegally, in Blaisdell Arena last October, but without access to the concert hall it had to cancel another show on the schedule, “The Riot Grrrl On Mars.”
With the concert hall back on line, HOT has rescheduled “Riot Grrrl” for February .