Randy Weeks in front of Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
As tributes poured in for Randy Weeks, president of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and executive director of the DCPA’s Broadway touring division, who passed away Oct. 9 in London while attending the Independent Presenters Network conference (IPN), many of his colleagues and friends noted that one of the industry’s true giants had reached the loftiest status in the Broadway crowd that one could.
“When you start out you call Broadway producers. They don’t call you,” said Jack Lucas, president at TicketsWest, who knew Weeks very well after working in the Broadway community for 28 years. “They were now calling Randy.”
“It’s a terrible loss, especially for Denver and the community,” Lucas continued. “He was the person who kind of brought Broadway to Denver in the form it is today. He had a great deal of success there and built the market as one of the top touring cities in the country. You don’t do that without working hard. He put a lot of time and effort into it and I’m sure made a lot of sacrifices along the way to get it to where it is so successful today.”
The news of Weeks’ passing traveled quickly from London back to the United States. He had missed a previously scheduled meeting while at the conference and colleagues requested that the hotel in which he was staying do a wellness check, at which time he was discovered in his bed. The cause of death is unknown.
“I knew Randy primarily through the Independent Presenters Network,” said Paul Beard, chief operating officer of The Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas. “Our CEO, Myron Martin, was in London at the time and called to tell me the news. I was absolutely stunned and I think everybody was. It was an absolute shock.”
DCPN played a video tribute before its performances.
Beard called Weeks a “mainstay and constant” in the industry and someone who rose from humble roots at the venue where he started in 1978 working in the box office. Weeks left to work in his family’s restaurant business before heading to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. He returned to Denver in 1989 and was named to succeed retiring Bob Garner, who originally brought Broadway to the Mile High City. Weeks was promoted to president in 2004. In all, he oversaw 400 productions in Denver.
“He was a very solid, well established and highly productive Broadway presenter who was a huge asset in his market,” Beard said. “There was a long evolution there where he basically built Denver into one of the premiere Broadway touring markets.”
Weeks was involved in numerous volunteer roles within the community and the Broadway family. He served on the board of governors and executive committee of the Broadway League and co-chaired that organization’s conference in recent years. He was also on the group’s Intra-Industry Committee made up of presenting members of the League from across the country.
“I just happened to be a big fan of his,” said Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of the Broadway League. “Randy had so much integrity and love for the business and was one of those good people. He was a significant contributor to Denver because he oversaw the development of the performing arts center and the bringing of Broadway to Denver in a first class manner. That’s not easily done.”
Beard said that Weeks’ credibility was a major factor in his success and noted that the Lion King was built in Denver and opened there before moving on to Houston, and Beard’s venue at the time, Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas. “I remember working with the Disney folks on putting that whole thing into play and they started out with a 14-week run in Denver. They had to have had great confidence in Randy.”
A young Weeks has dreams of Broadway.
“There are two very big pieces into bringing Broadway into a community,” Beard continued. “One is the interface with the Broadway community, which Randy obviously had with the agents, promoters and managers in that industry who invested in him as the presenter in Denver in terms of making the very best shows accessible for long runs in the market.
“The other piece is the confidence of his market and the ability to take these Broadway shows for long runs and offer them to the market in such a way that the market would respond with a big subscription base and strong attendance throughout the entire run. That’s the other skill set that is utterly crucial. Randy was the master of both.”
St. Martin agreed, saying that, “You have to have a facility where it works. But you have to have a strong reputation for being able to deliver an audience. Broadway is a very expensive proposition to mount. To be able to go into a city for a week and have a subscription that is strong enough to just cover expenses is a difficult thing. Because Randy had a strong reputation for being forthright and honest and an effective presenter who could take a show from Broadway and present it to his community made him one of the best.”
Most of all, Weeks was known for his ability to build relationships to help foster pride in his city’s cultural arts endeavors. Lucas called Broadway a “quality of life that you bring to your community, something where the soul of your community is defined through the arts.”
“It’s one of those things of build it and they will come and that’s what Randy did,” Lucas said. “It takes nurturing, it takes finesse and it takes making the right choices of what shows to bring to your city. It’s the old thing about this business being about relationships and you have to build those relationships. It takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of time, a lot of time.”
Each of last Friday’s performances at the DCPA’s six venues was dedicated to Weeks. Just before curtain, a short speech about Weeks was made at the Garner Galleria, Buell, Stage, Space and Ricketson theaters, and a moment of silence was held in his remembrance. Weeks’ seat at the Garner Galleria was left open to honor his memory and his legacy.
“What would a community be like if it did not have arts or a symphony?” Lucas asked. “It would be pretty drab and kind of boring and not as vibrant and exciting. I’ve been to Denver and can say I know what kind of huge impact Randy has made there. It’s a legacy he has left in the industry and also in the community.”
Weeks is survived by his father, David; brother, Joel; and sisters Pamela Weeks and Stephanie Gamble.
Interviewed for this article: Paul Beard, (702) 614-0109; Jack Lucas, (509) 981-6557; Charlotte St. Martin, (212) 764-1122