After 35 seasons, Paul Pierce Passes the Torch at the Springer

35 Years of Theatre Magic: Paul Pierce Passes the Leadership Torch at the Springer Opera House
“The greatest honor and joy of my life”: Opera House Leader Retires After 35 Years

One Tuesday night in January, the Springer’s longtime producing artistic director, Paul Pierce, gathered his staff onstage in Emily Woodruff Hall for an historic announcement. After thirty-five seasons through which he has played the same part to great acclaim, he has chosen 2023 as the year he will yield the stage to a new leadership team.

Pierce is one of the longest-serving theatrical producers in the country with a professional career that has spanned forty-six years and more than 500 productions.

“I’ve literally spent half of my time on Planet Earth at the Springer Opera House,” the 70 -year-old Pierce points out. “Leading the Springer has been the greatest honor and joy of my life but it’s time for younger, smarter people to propel this amazing theatre into the future.”

The Springer was a vastly different place when Pierce came to Columbus in 1988. In that year, two-thirds of the National Historic Landmark theatre was still in ruins, the bank accounts were nearly empty, there were only three full-time employees and annual attendance had sagged to fewer than 10,000 admissions. There was no annual giving program to support the theatre’s operations and the theatre was surrounded by boarded-up storefronts and condemned properties.

By the end of Pierce’s first season, the Springer finished with a budget surplus. He began turning the theatre’s focus toward what he considered to be the essential elements of future success – artistic excellence and audience building.

By 1995, annual attendance had tripled, professional actors were being hired for every mainstage show and audiences were traveling from Atlanta, Birmingham and Montgomery to see Springer productions.

However, Pierce recognized that the Springer audience was “graying” and understood that a younger, more diverse audience was essential if the Springer was to survive and thrive.That resulted in a legendary partnership with Ron Anderson, who helped lead and eventually build out the Springer Theatre Academy student body of a thousand registrations a year.

Once in Columbus, Pierce made sure to establish a home at the Springer for new works, producing world premieres of new plays. He started by founding the Deep South New Play Contest in 1991 which awarded cash prizes and full productions for the winners. Later, the Springer began commissioning works by rising Georgia playwrights such as Topher Payne and Natalia Temesgen. Pierce is a playwright himself and six of his plays have been produced at the Springer over the years, including an adaptation of Karen Spears Zacharias’ Weatherford Award-winning Appalachian novel, Mother of Rain and Kudzu, The Musical based on local Chattahoochee Valley legends and tall tales with original music by Allen Levi.

As part of the Springer’s commitment to new works, a quirky, late night program called No Shame Theater was created in 2009 to showcase original theatre, music, poetry, rap, standup, improvisation and sketch comedy. Every Friday night, each performer gets five minutes to try out their material with a supportive audience. No Shame Theater now attracts 8,000 non-traditional theatre-goers and 500 performers each year.

“I love directing, acting and writing,” admits Pierce, “But my greatest passion is audience-building. I love seeing first-time theatre-goers gradually emerge as season ticket-holders, then donors and then lifelong supporters. When that happens, you understand that theatre has become an integral part of this person’s life. Everyone who comes to a play has one thing in common. They are human – and they each have a hole in their lives that they are yearning to fill. When the curtain goes up, the audience scans the stage for meaning because meaning fills those holes. Unless audiences get bigger over time, I’m not sure you can call my career a success.“

Audiences have gotten bigger. Since coming to the Springer in 1988, the Springer audience has grown 1100%. With 112,200 admissions a year, the Springer Opera House now serves the second-largest theatre audience in the state of Georgia, behind only Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre. In 2013, Governor Nathan Deal awarded Pierce the Governor’s Award for the Arts in recognition of his long service to the cultural life of Georgia.

As Pierce steps away from his role as producer and artistic director, the theatre is stronger than ever. The Springer is financially stable, has a strong balance sheet, no debt and the Springer Endowment Fund has quadrupled during his tenure. The Springer staff has grown from four to twenty-five employees in the past 35 seasons and the staff is among the most talented, innovative and collaborative in the American theatre. The Springer is deeply committed to developing the next generation of theatre-makers and offers a host of internships and residencies for young emerging leaders.

“As I look around the Springer today, I get emotional when I see the amazingly talented, kind and creative professionals that I get to make art with,” Pierce said. “This is truly a noble enterprise and our bench is very deep. There are numerous people here who could run an American theatre and I am confident that that is their fate.”

Pierce is not leaving the Springer stage completely. The Springer board has named him Senior Advisor and charged him with expanding the theatre’s artistic and financial capacity.

“I’ll sort of be the living Springer Ghost. I might even direct or perform in a show from time to time,” Pierce said. “I still have a lot of theatre in me and my love of the Springer is a lifelong commitment.”

The Springer board has tapped two familiar faces to lead the Springer to the next level – Danielle Varner and Keith McCoy. They will begin their respective roles on October 1, 2023.

Danielle Patterson Varner, whom Pierce has often called, “America’s best managing director,” will step into the CEO portion of Pierce’s duties in the role of executive producer. Varner has served the Springer for twenty-one years, first in sales, then development and finally as managing director. For the past six years, she has been overseeing day-to-day operations, budget tracking, board relations and historic preservation.

“My time with the Springer has seen me in numerous roles that have spanned more than two decades,” Varner said. “I hope in all of those incredible years, I have been able to enrich it as much as it has enriched me. It has truly been a privilege serving this wonderful theatre, our loyal patrons and this community as I am eagerly looking forward to continuing to do so for many years to come. I am deeply honored to follow in the footprints of my mentor, friend and predecessor, Paul Pierce, but to also lead the Springer, alongside Keith McCoy, into an even more exciting and transformative future.”

Keith Patrick McCoy will become the Springer’s new artistic director. McCoy is well known among local audiences, actors, designers, technicians and Springer Theatre Academy parents. He is also one of the American stage’s most admired and sought-after artists. A year ago, Pierce brought McCoy onto his team fulltime as a resident artist and then promoted him to associate artistic director in November of 2022.

“I am honored and humbled by this wonderful opportunity to lead the Springer Opera House into its next chapter,” McCoy said. “I look forward to serving this incredible organization by building on the theatre’s legacy of success with passion, dedication and integrity.”