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Photo Credit: Malcolm Parry
Moon Lee Law and husband Dennis rose at his Centre in Vancouver re-opening - Malcolm Parry Vancouver magazine Summer 2002

Civic theatres GM praises impresario for 'being ahead of curve'

Many people consider Dr. Dennis Law a visionary, but the future looked a little cloudy this week for the Denver impresario who bought the former Ford Centre and brought it back to life as The Centre in Vancouver for Performing Arts.

Law was roasted by critics, some more than others, when the recent opening night of his "action musical" Terracotta Warriors suffered many technical glitches.

By most accounts those problems were quickly fixed; Calgary theatre critic Louis B. Hobson attended Terracotta Warriors on Tuesday, and "found it to be seamless and compelling," he said afterward. "What [Law's] been able to do is take the conventions of Chinese theatre and make them accessible to Western audiences."

The action musical Terracotta Warriors continues at The Centre to May 30.
CREDIT: Vancouver Sun

Ming Pao reporter Vivian Yang says her Chinese friends were also pleased with Terracotta Warriors, although they cited a key difference between East and West in the audience.

"If you don't know Qin dynasty history, you might have difficulty understanding the story. But when the Caucasian audience enjoys the kung-fu or other skills, they don't need to know that history to appreciate the show."

Dennis Law's The Centre is in 'an extremely difficult marketplace' where 'nature itself is an issue,' Arts Club GM Howard Jang, above, says.
CREDIT: Peter Battistoni, Vancouver Sun

The great gulf between what Caucasians and Chinese expect of their entertainment is just one of Law's dilemmas at The Centre, which landed at the centre of an artistic debate this week. Law has suffered a roller-coaster ride in trying to program events for the building, making money on some shows and losing his silk shirt on others. When he called on Vancouver to help figure things out, Law was flooded with e-mails and phone calls.

His lovely 1,850-seat venue is actually an ugly duckling, too big for most theatre and too small to find a profit in the narrow margins offered on touring Broadway shows. Because it was built by impresario Garth Drabinsky solely to showcase long-term runs of his own Livent spectacles such as Show Boat or Ragtime, it's too small for short-run shows. Call it the thousand-seat curse, the difference in capacity that makes the much-larger Queen Elizabeth Theatre far more attractive to out-of-town producers.

Last year, for example, Mirvish Productions made a last-minute decision to bring Mamma Mia! to Vancouver because Toronto was in the midst of a SARS-inspired tourism crisis. The only way it would work financially, says director of communications John Karastamatis, was at the Queen E. Completely contrary to Vancouver audiences' usual reluctance in planning ahead, the show sold $1.8 million tickets within 24 hours.

"It was staggering. We'd never seen anything like it. From our indications, it was a world record," Karastamatis said.

Vancouver Civic Theatres general manager Rae Ackerman, who runs the Playhouse, Queen Elizabeth and Orpheum theatres, welcomed the chance to help Law.

"I've always been the best neighbour I can be," says Ackerman, "because I don't see us being in competition at all. We're all in the same business and whenever any of us does well, everybody benefits."

Ackerman is especially pleased to see Law trying to bridge the cultural gap.

"I think he's absolutely onto something important," says Ackerman, "but he's ahead of the curve in terms of trying to address the multicultural audience that we have in Vancouver. It's a big issue for all of us down the road, and he's bang-on in trying to address that. He's just a bit early."

"He is a visionary," says Mark Holden, who works with Law on The Centre's continuing technical upgrade and stepped in as acting chief operating officer. "He's very misunderstood. He's a very high-quality guy."

Law declared at a Tuesday press conference that he's here to learn.

"I have no arrogant ambition as to what show will and will not work. Even though we own this theatre in name and by title, this theatre has to belong to the citizens of Vancouver, because it is their occupancy of the seats that makes the performances worthwhile."

Law is further hampered by having to come up to speed quickly on something that has driven Vancouver's theatrical community crazy for decades -- this city's setting and our inclination to stay outdoors.

"What Dennis Law and others find out is that Vancouver is an extremely difficult marketplace," says Arts Club Theatre general manager Howard Jang. "Nature itself is an issue."

"It's not necessarily choosing between one play and another play," echoes Vancouver Playhouse artistic director Glynis Leyshon, "but between a play and 'should I go rollerblading on the seawall?' "

Leyshon was reluctant to accept Law's call for input.

"We don't want, as one organization, to be telling another organization what its mandate should be. That comes from the vision of the organization itself. They have to understand who they are and to celebrate what that is with excellence."

Ackerman sent a letter to Law with no shortage of suggestions. For instance, until The Centre can find a producer attuned to the peculiarities of the West Coast market, it should focus on simply renting the building out in order to minimize financial risk. Holden acknowledges that The Centre's recent box-office returns have been "less than stellar," but adds "I'm very happy to report that we're booking business on a daily basis into next year."

More than an Asian connection is evident in these bookings that range from a Hungarian folk festival to Persian pop stars. The Centre could become what arts commentator Max Wyman calls for in his new book The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters:

"Practically, a recognition of cultural diversity can help develop a sense of involvement within local communities," Wyman writes. "It can spark new ways to live together and help protect against the stresses that occur when cultures brush up against each other. Confidence and security in our individual cultural identities provides a bulwark against xenophobia, giving us the resilience and adaptability to to go on reinventing ourselves."

Ackerman says he would reinvent The Centre.

"My first approach would be to get rid of the open atrium and floor the [second-floor] lobby right over it," he says, citing the crush of crowds at intermission.

"Then I'd get rid of all the mirrors because they disorient the audience. When you're all jammed together on that white marble staircase, with all those heads in the mirrors reflecting back, a lot of people get claustrophobic."

Ackerman will decide by mid-June if he can go ahead with a massive renovation of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre that would see it closed for the summers of 2005 and 2006. He has already steered some producers to The Centre, including the National Ballet, and urges Law to be ready to jump in on other shows.

"We're compressing the winter season so much," says Ackerman of the QET, "that it's going to be hard to get Broadway in there. So he has an open market."

What Law doesn't have is a magic guarantee of bums in seats.

Productions such as Terracotta Warriors have to compete with the city's setting.

CREDIT: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun

"The Vancouver audience is a last-minute audience," says Ackerman. "They very much want to hear word-of-mouth on a show."

Ming Pao's Yang says that's just as true of the Chinese community, which has become used to many producers (but not Law) lowering ticket prices just before a show.

"Chinese audiences here will wait to see, until they've heard about its reputation from friends or the media. Slowly, slowly, they'll accept it, but they need time. It takes time." - by Peter Birnie Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER LIFE ^TMby MALCOLM PARRY
Moon Lee Law and husband Dennis rose at his Centre in Vancouver re-opening. - Malcolm Parry Vancouver Summer 2002

SOCIAL COLUMN
Dennis Law and brothers Christopher, Ron and Jeremy, the Denver physicians who recently bought Vancouver's Ford Centre for the Performing Arts, cracked the long-closed door open Monday to announce a name change and their first show.

The 1,850-seat Homer-off-Georgia theatre is now The Centre in Vancouver for The Performing Arts. A mouthful, you bet, but "Vancouver Centre" was already taken and Dennis thought a name like Apollo would be dumb. City culturati may settle on "Civpa."

Opening in April, the Laws' first staging -- surprise! -- will be Of Heaven and Earth, a Chinese-fable-based song-and-dance show the fraternal four have already produced in Beijing. Given Dennis' two-weeks-old marriage to Heaven and Earth co-producer Moon Lee, one might have expected a remount of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Instead, he said, unconsciously echoing former theatre operator Garth Drabinsky, he and his siblings "are willing to undergo the cost and grief" of staging the aptly titled opus.

We'll observe the Laws here often, in theatrical and not-for-profit endeavours, Dennis said -- welcome news for local charities and foundations. But don't expect his quarter horses and European warmbloods to stray north from their Colorado corrals. "Too rainy here," he said, as cats and dogs washed his windows. "They'd get dirty." - by Malcom Parry, Vancouver Sun

Ballet biggie, theatre boss cross paths

Intriguingly, Dennis Law and bride Moon Lee made the event their first appearance at a cultural or charity gala here. The honeymooners had just flown from Beijing, where Law was making travel arrangements for his Of Heaven and Earth show that, with its cast of 96, will be here in May to re-open the Centre For The Performing Arts he and his three brothers bought last month.

The comfortable, almost-new, 1,850-seat centre is located close by the 2,800-seat Queen Elizabeth Theatre, and Law and Ballet B.C. brass have a meeting scheduled for Friday. One wonders what they'll talk about.

by Malcom Parry, Vancouver Sun 19 February 2002
Laws of Denver hope to turn 'black hole' into vibrant theatre

They're nothing if not eclectic. They are the Law brothers, four Denver medical specialists, aka Four Brothers Entertainment, who just 10 days ago put down $7.7 million cash for the empty Ford Theatre.

If anybody seems likely to turn the black hole into a vibrant theatre again, it's these guys. Not only did they have cash to pay for it and, they assure me, enough money to get through the start-up period, their resumes suggest they don't often fail.

But there's more to the Law brothers than that. Not only do they want to make the theatre financially successful, they seem genuinely to want to make Vancouver a more vibrant city, where the arts reflect its ethnic diversity.

The brothers -- the only four in the University of Pennsylvania's 240-year history to graduate consecutively from medical school -- have a long and diverse list of credits. First, there is the family business.

It's primarily a real estate company that manages more than a million square feet of commercial office space. But they've also published 100 million premium Pokemon cards for Frito-Lay through their printing company Product Partner International and have a company, Holiday Creations Inc., that is a leading manufacturer of animated and seasonal products.

Together, they produced an action movie that was rather a flop at the box office. The $35-million US Warriors of Virtue featuring kick-boxing kangaroos has the dubious honour of having been named the Broadcast Film Critics Association's worst movie of 1997. But a million copies of the video were sold before it was re-released last March.

At 54, Dennis is the oldest and a vascular and thoracic surgeon. He was the first to go to the United States for college. First to go to medical school. The first to go to Denver. The first to give up full-time medical practice to do more business in China.

He still does surgery a few days a month as a clinical professor at the University of Colorado.

"I continue to do it because I'm very good at it. But I was tired of being told by high school graduates at HMO [health maintenance organizations] when I could do surgery and when I couldn't. I've done the great surgeries, the difficult ones and like [former Denver Broncos quarterback] John Elway, I decided to retire while I was still good at what I did and find a new career."

Like his brothers, Dennis was influenced by his parents' and particularly his mother's, love of the arts and was heavily involved with music and drama during high school in Hong Kong.

He founded the Joseph and Loretta Law Foundation that supports the arts in Colorado and sits on the board of Opera Colorado and has produced a television series for Chinese TV and an award-winning children's movie in Chinese.

His brothers describe him as the trailblazer, the strategist, the point man for finding new business ventures.

It's Dennis who took the lead at Monday's news conference. It was Dennis who first raised the idea of buying a theatre in Vancouver.

"I think it's because in the past, when I pushed forward the real estate business, the others were younger and just establishing their practices, while mine was settled in. Because I was older, I was more the person pushing forward," he says. "Now that they are older and more settled, I gravitated toward China, because I enjoy the travel."

Unlike the others who speak English and Cantonese, Dennis also speaks fluent Mandarin. Just two weeks ago, he married Moon Lee, a Chinese actress who has done 45 films, 1,000 television shows and will be co-producing with Dennis the opening show for the new Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts.

Dennis says Ron -- the next oldest -- is the cautious one who prefers to deal with structures. Ron himself says he's the family's pessimist and needed some convincing about buying a theatre in Vancouver, even though he liked the city after spending nearly six months here during the filming of Warriors of Virtue.

But when Ron saw the theatre and the numbers, he was convinced -- as are the others -- that the theatre's failure wasn't because of the building or the lack of support from Vancouver audiences. The problem, they say, was that Garth Drabinsky and Livent ran a lousy company that kept productions like Showboat in town too long because the next big show produced by their company wasn't ready to come in and replace it.

Dennis, by the way, dismisses Ron's self-portrait as pessimist, saying it's his way of "getting an edge into his speech [at the news conference]."

Ron also describes himself as the family's caretaker, setting up the operational management systems so that each company can function autonomously.

He practises cardiology in the morning, does business in the afternoon and in his spare time he has written a book that was just released in November called The Body of Business, in which he suggests there is little difference in the techniques for diagnosing problems in bodies and businesses.

Ron describes his brother Christopher as the erudite, thinking one who "sometimes talks ad nauseam." Chris calls himself the family's realist, the critic. When Dennis and Ron told him they were thinking of buying the Ford Theatre, "I hated the idea."

He's 46 and a plastic surgeon. "I'm impossible," he says matter-of-factly. "I'm painful to be around sometimes because I'm always hard on everything."

But he loves films and music describing himself as an old rock 'n' roller even though he sits on the board of Opera Colorado Artist Center and was raised on piano lessons and classical music.

"All through my life, music and performing arts have played a large part. They changed my life. I would not be the same person if I had not been raised on them."

In addition to a long list of publications relating to plastic surgery, Chris was the producer and photographer of a documentary short and was associate producer and bassist on an album by The Rocket Scientists called A Few Cheap Vacations. Chris lists his secret wishes as being able to speak Italian fluently and being either an award-winning screenwriter or production designer.

Chris doesn't quite accept Ron's description of the brothers being unimaginative because they have chosen such similar paths. He prefers to think of his siblings and him as "late bloomers."

As the interview progresses, Chris backtracks on his self-description of realist. Instead he decides Ron is the realist, while he (Chris) is the family fantasist -- the guy who dreams about melding technology and art, the guy who, after doing an undergraduate degree in molecular genetics, applied for and was accepted to both medical school and art school.

Jeremy is the youngest brother -- the missing brother on Monday because of a heavy surgery schedule in Denver. He's an orthopedic surgeon, the nuts and bolts guy both in medicine and in business. Chris says it's Jeremy who loves crunching the numbers and analysing the data on companies, and it's Jeremy who is the very practical, down-to-earth guy.

And with a new investment in a new city comes a new Law. Ron's 22-year-old son, Michael, is joining the family firm as vice-president of marketing and sales for Four Brothers Entertainment. A professional lacrosse player who has played with the Boston Cannons and was drafted by the Vancouver Ravens for the 2002 season, Michael just graduated with a degree in business administration after winning a medal for two consecutive quarters with a grade point average of 4.0.

Michael didn't want to go into the family business. He wanted to work for a big, big corporation, possibly in the entertainment field. But then he got drafted by the Ravens. Then his father and uncles bought a theatre.

"Ultimately, it was a fantastic fit because I did business, finance and marketing. I play the piano and my family has been highly invested in opera, ballet and film and the theatre and GM Place [where the Ravens play] are only about 100 yards apart."

It doesn't get much better than that. - by Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun

Theatre critic banned from The Centre by owner

In her May 6 review of Terracotta Warriors, Westender theatre critic Leanne Campbell referred to "unforgivable ball-ups" in the production.

As it turns out, the unforgiving is on the part of Dennis K. Law, co-owner of The Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts, who has banned Campbell from future shows at the theatre.

In a letter to the editor published in the Westender on May 13, Law criticized Campbell for viewing the production -- a mixture of theatre, dance, music and martial arts executed by performers of Chinese descent -- from a Western perspective.

Accusing Campbell of "turning professional reviews of shows into personal attacks on me and The Centre," Law concluded that Campbell "is no longer welcome as either a reviewer or a patron at The Centre."

Law, who runs The Centre with brothers Ronald, Christopher and Jeremy Law, also sent letters to The Vancouver Sun and the Globe and Mail with regard to reviews by The Sun's Peter Birnie and the Globe and Mail's Alexandra Gill.

Law was not available to comment Monday, but The Centre's publicist Gena Mahil confirmed that Campbell has been banned from future shows at The Centre either as a reviewer or a paying customer, and that letters were also sent to The Vancouver Sun and The Globe and Mail. Neither Birnie nor Gill is banned from future productions at The Centre.

Vancouver Sun editor-in-chief Patricia Graham was not aware of any letter sent to her.

Campbell, whose review was negative but not personal, doesn't understand Law's points in his letter.

"He says I'm seeing things from a western Caucasian perspective. What perspective am I supposed to use?" said Campbell, who was born and raised in the Lower Mainland.

"What sensibility am I supposed to bring to the production? Zimbabwean?"

Terracotta Warriors runs until May 30.

Campbell, who has had no personal contact with Law, isn't sure if she will be denied entry to a future production even if she's a paying customer.

Added Campbell: "We haven't had any announcements of any future productions at The Centre, so at the moment I'm banned from nothing." - by Marke Andrews Vancouver Sun 18 May 2004

Editor notes that other sources including Chinese in the Vancouver community found Terra Cotta, the production had wonderful costumes and choreography.