2015 TRUE WEST AWARDS: 30 DAYS, 30 BOUQUETS

​Today’s recipient: Jalyn Courtenay Webb
Managing Director, Midtown Arts Center

Today’s award presenter: DCPA Senior Arts Journalist John Moore

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When owner Kurt Terrio promoted Jalyn Courtenay Webb to Managing Director of Fort Collins’ Midtown Arts Center in July, he was doing more than hiring the best person for the job. He was making a little bit of Colorado theatre history.

Midtown, with its four performance spaces and robust dinner-theatre operation, is now believed to be the largest theatre in Colorado whose daily operations are managed by a woman. Webb has been an award-winning actor, vocal coach and Musical Director from Northern Colorado to Parker for more than two decades. Her new responsibilities include education, sales and marketing and artistic management, as well as event bookings and community outreach. 

“Her vast on-stage experience and credibility in the eyes of performers, combined with her 25 years of professional business experience in marketing, sales, coaching and training, make her the perfect fit for this major role at Midtown,” said Terrio.

Midtown, which is known for being first to stage big Broadway musicals in Northern Colorado, attracted about 65,000 theatregoers in 2015, including its children’s theatre operation, and generates about $2 million in annual revenue. There are about 5,000 subscribers.

Webb left a lucrative career with Vera Bradley managing retailers in six states to work for Midtown full-time. And no one with a lucrative outside business career leaves it to work in the theatre without a pretty good plan for how to make it work. Webb has a plan.

“This job takes everything I’ve ever done well and rolls them in to one amazing opportunity to make something special happen in Northern Colorado,” said Webb, who graduated from Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.

Jalyn Courtenay Webb performs in ‘Rock of Ages’ at Midtown Arts Center through Jan. 2 in Fort Collins. Courtesy Midtown Arts Center.

Onstage, Webb has taken on many monster roles, including Bloody Mary in South Pacific and Madame Thénardier in Les Misérables. As the rare songbird with a keen business acumen, Webb intends to continue performing and directing in her new job. She is both the Musical Director and performing as the strip-club madam in the guilty pleasure 1980s big-hair band musical Rock of Ages, a runaway hit that has been extended through Jan. 2. And the new boss sure knew how to get on the right side of this cast: Webb took all 14 of them to Vegas for a whirlwind, 16-hour visit to see the show performed there.

The Midtown Arts Center opened 23 years ago as the Carousel Dinner Theatre. In 2010, Terrio and his wife moved the operation down Mason Street to its present location in a former Fort Collins cineplex. The 236-seat dinner theatre is the hub, but Terrio also opened a 75-seat black-box theatre in 2014 and expanded the 200-seat ballroom as a community resource and presently host of an original evening of holiday songs called Merry and Bright. Including the 180-seat children’s theatre, Midtown now has the capacity to offer four shows simultaneously.

Next up in the dinner theatre is the Johnny Cash homage Ring of Fire, opening Jan. 8. Other titles on various stages will include the crowd-pleasing I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change; The Fantasticks; Lost in Yonkers; and Mary Poppins. (Click here for information.) Midtown recently scored a coup for its children’s theatre by securing the rights to perform the youth version of School of Rock. That’s the new Andrew Lloyd Webber Broadway musical that only opened in New York on Dec. 6.

Webb lives by the personal mantra. “No Ordinary Moments.” As the Midtown Arts Center’s new Managing Director, there’s not a one of those in sight.

ABOUT THE TRUE WEST AWARDS
The True West Awards began as the Denver Post Ovation Awards in 2001. This year, DCPA Senior Arts Journalist John Moore — along with additional voices from around the state — celebrate the entire local theatre community by recognizing 30 achievements from around the state over 30 days, without categories or nominations. Moore’s daily coverage of the DCPA and the Colorado theatre community can be found at MyDenverCenter.Org

THE 2015 TRUE WEST AWARDS
Day 1: Rachel D. Graham
Day 2: BALLS! A Holiday Spectacular
Day 3: Creede Repertory Theatre’s 50th anniversary season
Day 4: Laurence Curry
Day 5: Bernie Cardell
Day 6: Susan Lyles
Day 7: John Jurcheck​
Day 8: Christopher L. Sheley
Day 9: DCPA Education’s ‘Shakespeare in the Parking Lot‘
Day 10: Man and Monster: Todd Debreceni and TJ Hogle
Day 11: Shauna Johnson
Day 12: Geoffrey Kent and Benjamin Bonenfant
Day 13: Sesugh Solomon Tor-Agbidye
Day 14: Keith Ewer
Day 15: Allison Watrous
Day 16: Jonathan Farwell
Day 17: Bob, Wendy and Missy Moore
Day 18: Emma Messenger
Day 19: Shannon McKinney
Day 20: Mary Louise Lee and Yasmine Hunter
Day 21: Charlie Miller and Emily Tarquin
Day 22: Scott Beyette
Day 23: Augustus Truhn
Day 24: Jimmy Bruenger
Day 25: The Masters of Props: Rob Costigan, Peki Pineda and Becky Toma
Day 26: Jalyn Courtenay Webb
Day 27: Andre Rodriguez
Day 28: Rebecca Remaly
Day 29: Mark Collins
Day 30: Phamaly Theatre Company’s Cabaret
Bonus: Donald R. Seawell