Published: November 26, 2008 11:26 pm      

State review is seen as an offer to assist TWV

Education and Arts Secretary Kay Goodwin is heading up a team next week to examine the books of Theatre West Virginia to see if the Manchin administration can help the group let the shows go on as usual next summer.

That pledge came one day after TWV’s general manager, Gayle Bowling, announced the board’s decision to shut down the 48-year-old cultural enterprise in southern West Virginia, launched in 1963 as part of the state’s centennial celebration.

“This is an offer, and that’s certainly all we can do is offer to assist them,” Goodwin said Wednesday.

“I think we’ll be reviewing their financial situation. I’m hopeful we’ll bring perhaps administrators of other theatrical groups in the state who might be able to give them some helpful suggestions as to their fundraising activities.”

Board members agreed unanimously to apply the brakes in the aftermath of a $100,000 rollback in state funding — equaling 10 percent of its overall budget — from the Division of Culture and History.

Perhaps, Goodwin suggested, the as-yet-unscheduled meeting will produce ideas to pull TWV out of its morass.

“We are very concerned, of course,” Goodwin said, acknowledging the company that produces the Civil War drama “Honey in the Rock” and “Hatfields & McCoys” is a major tourist attraction in this region.

“It’s also a major artistic endeavor,” she said. “I would be very hopeful that we can help them help themselves. That would be the hope.”

While the group hasn’t been chosen, Goodwin said, it presumably will include an accountant to assess TWV’s financial situation.

Goodwin emphasized her office in no way decides which fairs and festivals are assigned state funding. This is a decision between the executive branch and the Legislature.

“But given that, I certainly am interested and I know the commissioner (Randall Reid Smith) is interested in any arts group and certainly one of the stature of TWV. We definitely want to confer and consult all we can to be helpful as we can be,” she said.

Goodwin is personally familiar with TWV’s long history. In the debut season of 1963, her husband, Joe Goodwin, played the role of David Morgan in the story of West Virginia’s birth in the midst of the Civil War.

Bowling said TWV has no qualms about opening its books to state scrutiny but doubted any advice from other theatrical groups would be beneficial since its operation, unlike theirs, is year-round.

Incoming Delegate Sally Susman, D-Raleigh, agreed on both points, saying, “They’re not going to find anything wrong” when the books are examined.

TWV provides a valuable cultural experience with its varied forays into public schools across the state and has been a vital spoke in the economic wheel turning in this region, she said.

“We’ve worked so hard for economic development, especially in this county,” she said.

“We get it built up, and when people come in here to visit, they like to have the amphitheater out there.”

Gov. Joe Manchin told The Register-Herald on Tuesday he believes an acceptable resolution is possible, but only if TWV leaders are willing to make some changes in the group’s operation.

“If we want to do something, we work together and find a solution,” he said.

Bowling is under the board’s directive to dispose of its assets within two weeks.

Unless a resolution is found, however, Bowling borrowed a theme from the Manchin administration to lament, “As far as we’re concerned now, we’re no longer open for business.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com