DCPA NEWS CENTER
Enjoy the best stories and perspectives from the theatre world today.
Enjoy the best stories and perspectives from the theatre world today.
The last among hundreds of plays Daniel L. Ritchie ever saw could not have been more perfectly chosen. On the day before Thanksgiving, the Denver business titan sat among giggling children watching a Theatre for Young Audiences performance of Elephant & Piggie’s “We Are in a Play!” at the Denver Center’s Randy Weeks Conservatory Theatre. Sitting next to him was his friend and protégé, DCPA President and CEO Janice Sinden.
“I looked at him, and he was in complete wonderment,” Sinden said of the 93-year-old kid who was awestruck whenever he saw children being turned onto the magic of live theater.
Daniel L. Ritchie
“It took his breath away looking around the theater at grandparents and parents and brothers and sisters and kiddos and caregivers enjoying live theater and the power of story,” Sinden said. “I just love that he never lost that, and he continued throughout his life to seek that out.”
Ritchie, who rescued the University of Denver from financial disaster in the 1980s and came out of retirement at age 74 to lead the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) through the global economic crisis in 2007, died at his home in Denver on Jan. 30.
During Ritchie’s 16 years as Chancellor at the University of Denver (1989-2005), he oversaw a $274 million fundraising campaign that spurred numerous capital improvements on campus, including new buildings for student living, business, science, law and music education, as well as a performing-arts center and the sports and recreation center that includes an arena for basketball and hockey. His name seems to be everywhere, a reflection of his personal commitment for putting his money where his heart was.
But to many, Ritchie remained something of an enigma: a high-profile leader who kept a low personal profile. And yet, friends say if things had gone another way, he might have been destined for a life on the stage himself. Ritchie’s penchant for performing was put to good use at the DCPA, where his willingness to do just about anything to call attention to company fundraising efforts was just part of what made him a most uncommon CEO in America.
Ritchie agreed to sport some bling while he performed a rap video to promote the Denver Center’s newfangled blog in 2010. “I remember that his former university colleagues were incredulous because he had never let loose when he was at DU,” current Chairman Hassan Salem said with a laugh. “He was always willing to step out of his comfort zone for the love of the theatre and to make an impact.”
Dan Ritchie as the Ghost of Christmas Present, 2010. Photo by Chris Schneider Photography
In 2014, Ritchie underwent a fully documented immersion into the world of drag to call attention to the Denver Center Theatre Company’s world-premiere production of The Legend of Georgia McBride … at age 82. His drag alter ego was named Lady Givesmore. At various fundraisers, Ritchie dressed up as the rocker Slash, The Ghost of Christmas Present, and Tom Sawyer to encourage donations for his challenge grants. Anything for the cause.
“He was a theater leader, but was a theater lover, too,” said Sinden.
In short, Ritchie never took himself too seriously. He had fun, and he encouraged others to have fun along the way, too.
“To see that playfulness in him – someone who has carried so much serious responsibility for so many organizations – you just knew that that art spoke to him as well,” Sinden said.
But life had a much bigger stage in mind for the humble young man from North Carolina whose uncommon life took him from Harvard to Hollywood, from DU to the DCPA.
Ritchie was born Sept. 19, 1932, in China Grove, N.C., a small town north of Charlotte with a population that still barely tops 4,000.
He was an inquisitive kid but also easily bored by traditional school. He intended to drop out of high school, Sinden said, because he was not feeling stimulated. “He was at a crossroads, but he somehow found his way to Harvard, where they said, ‘We are going to take this very bright individual and figure out every way we can to keep him going,’” she said.
Ritchie’s parents scraped and sacrificed, and Ritchie earned both his bachelor’s degree and MBA from Harvard.
“Dan recognized how fortunate he was that there were people – his parents in particular, and a very prestigious university that believed in him,” Sinden said. “He always wondered, ‘If it hadn’t been for that path, where would I have ended up?’ And he committed himself then and there to do as much as he could individually and collectively to provide opportunities for youth. And he’s been paying it forward ever since. I think it’s good karma.”
Ritchie briefly served in the U.S. Army and then as a securities analyst in New York before eventually settling in Denver. He first came to Colorado to run Columbia Savings and Loan in the 1960s. He then left for California, where he served as executive vice president of the MCA film studio. He lived in the house that actor Michael Wilding built for Elizabeth Taylor and struck up a friendship with Alfred Hitchcock. But Ritchie soon left what he termed the “grubby” and “heartless” business of Hollywood.
He then entered the organic foods industry as an entrepreneur and then spent eight years as CEO of Westinghouse Broadcasting (later absorbed by CBS). Ritchie was especially proud that Westinghouse broke the AIDS story nationally while he was at its helm.
Ritchie retired from Westinghouse at age 55 in favor of the Grand River Ranch near Kremmling, where he planned to spend the rest of his life raising cattle, hiking and enjoying ranch life. But that was before the start of a second serving the University of Denver, and a third life serving the DCPA and many community organizations and boards.
Ritchie was roused out of retirement in 2005 when DCPA founder Donald R. Seawell asked him to succeed him as both CEO and Chairman. At the time, Seawell said he considered arm-twisting Ritchie into succeeding him to have been the single greatest accomplishment of his life – behind marrying Eugenia Rawls.
Ritchie’s priorities included “bringing in more women playwrights, more women directors, bringing in more Latino and African-American performers, as well as playwrights,” he said at the time. “I really believe this is a holy mission.
“I also care deeply about our education programs: Reaching out to schools and bringing young people in for student matinees. All of this is really building for the future. And that’s not just good for the DCPA – it’s good for the kids, and for their futures.”
In 2003, Ritchie arranged for DU to hand over the property its Lamont School of Music was using at the former Colorado Women’s College as a new home for Denver School of the Arts at 7111 E. Montview Blvd. Under Ritchie, DCPA Education added both a teen playwriting competition and the Bobby G Awards, which celebrate achievements in Colorado high-school musical theater. In 2015, he entered into a partnership with Denver Public Schools on its annual student Shakespeare festival, the largest of its kind in the world.
But while no one knew it then, Ritchie came to the Denver Center at a time when the world was on the precipice of a global financial collapse. Ritchie considers his greatest accomplishment steering and stabilizing the Denver Center’s finances through that rocky time, even though it required tough budgetary decisions including the closing of the National Theatre Conservatory master’s program and a wholesale restructuring of the company’s dependence on the Bonfils Foundation for its operating budget among other difficult decisions.
“In many ways, Dan ensured the continuation of the thriving life of the Denver Center,” said Martin Semple, president of the Bonfils Foundation. “I don’t think most folks outside recognized the serious financial crisis that DCPA was facing when Dan took it over. It took some time – and it took a lot of tough decisions. Dan ensured that the core mission of DCPA continued during those tough times. I think the strong position that we’re in today is largely due to the leadership that Dan demonstrated and implemented.”
Ritchie, who was never paid for his work at the Denver Center, stepped down after eight years, believing the worst was behind the Denver Center.
“I do think the Denver Center is in good shape,” Ritchie said in 2015. “With a nonprofit business you can never afford to rest on your laurels, but one of the reasons for doing this now is we are in a good place.”
In all, Sinden said, Ritchie has personally contributed $3,517,186 to the DCPA, mostly for education and to support the company’s new-play development program.
“I think it’s incredible that Dan had such a commitment to new plays and musicals, really from the moment he started here,” said former Denver Center Theatre Company Artistic Director Kent Thompson. “He recognizes that’s really part of our legacy to the entire nation, to the field. And he not only supported it, he put up his own money into it, and he brought other monies into it as well.”
Salem established the Daniel L. Ritchie Spotlight Award in 2019, which is given at the annual Saturday Night Alive gala to an individual or organization who has made significant contributions to the DCPA and also embodies Ritchie’s values. Last year, that award was presented to Robert and Judi Newman, namesakes of the Newman Education Building.
“Dan not only cared deeply for the Denver Center — its people, its programming and its artistry — he was also pivotal in providing opportunities to engage new audiences,” Salem said. “Dan contributed the matching funds for two DCPA challenge grants that served more than 400,000 students, many of whom had never seen live theatre before. And he took a gamble on an emerging art form when he oversaw the creation of DCPA Off-Center, which now welcomes up to 100,000 patrons each year.”
Ritchie stepped back in 2016 specifically to give him more time to focus on the 2016 reauthorization vote for the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. That is the penny cultural tax on every $10 that brings in more than $8 million a year for the Denver Center’s programs.
“Especially in the creative arts, you always need fresh ideas, fresh blood, fresh energy and fresh enthusiasm,” Ritchie said at the time. “And while hopefully I have brought some of that to this, change is an ongoing process forever. As our society changes, as our customers change, as our attitudes change, we need to change, too. And that’s a good thing.”
But even after Ritchie stepped down, he remained a familiar face around the Denver Performing Arts Complex. The DCPA finally feted Ritchie with a full celebration of all his contributions to the DCPA in 2017.
Sinden believes any discussion of Ritchie’s legacy must start with education.
“From his own upbringing to all the work that he has done to advocate for education from early childhood all the way through to a person receiving their PhD, Dan has been an advocate for every form of education,” said Sinden, who had dinner with Ritchie every two weeks until the end. “He has been an advocate for the right that he believes every human being has to a strong, solid education, and he has fought for every single person to have access to that. I think that is his most important contribution to Colorado.”
But for all his evident accomplishments, Sinden’s fondest memories of Ritchie will always be as a theatergoer. Like attending one memorable interactive, tactile DCPA Education experience where children were allowed to touch sheep.
“Dan really wanted to go, so we went together. And when you got there, you got to pick black sheep ears to wear or white sheep ears. And Dan joked, ‘Well, I am a black sheep,’ so he chose black. And so, here’s this very distinguished man in his 80s having his moment with these children while wearing his little black sheep ears. That’s who Dan was.”
One more thing Dan was that few others likely know: “He loved honey,” Sinden said. “He was the world’s biggest advocate for honeybees – and all pollinators, frankly. So every time I will enjoy honey going forward, I will do so with my friend, Dan.”
DENVER CENTER HIGHLIGHTS