Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you this evening.  I’d like to provide a recap of The Murphy Theatre’s 2024 season, and share with you some of our plans for 2025. 

We began 2024 with great excitement.  For the first two weeks of the year we served as the filming location for a Hollywood motion picture, called Nutcrackers, starring Ben Stiller.  

Shortly after the movie company left we purchased a brand new state of the art digital projector, using the proceeds from the theatre’s rental fee charged to the film company. 

Next, we resumed the work of a complete restoration of our 73-year-old marquee, a process that we actually began in 2023, but needed to hit the “pause” button for the filming.  We paid for this restoration with a loan from Merchants National Bank, and monies from a fundraising campaign we began in the summer of ’23 that we called, Two Thousand Bulbs of Light, my own homage to my friend and late President Bush, (for whom I used to provide entertainment in the summers in Kennebunkport Maine), and his famous 1988 Thousand Points of Light speech, hailing the virtues of volunteerism and community service.    

Our goal was to raise the first $50,000.00 of that cost of the marquee restoration, which we did. We removed the old bulbs from the marquee, and for a $105.00 contribution, the age of the theatre at the time, you would receive one of these pieces of history in a container that was padded by shredded programs of years gone by.

In February, thanks to a great partnership with Ohio Humanities we were able to premiere the revised, extended version of The Lincoln School Story, the documentary film about the Hillsboro School segregation of 1954.  We even had a handful of ladies who were students in that film on hand for a Q and A afterwards.  We were surprised and delighted by the incredible turnout for that event. 

Another highlight of the year was the relationship we created with a public television series, called, Songs at the Center.  Songs at the Center is a series of interviews with songwriters who share the inspiration behind their lyrics, and then perform some of their favorite pieces.  Many of these are Grammy® Award winning artists.  This series started in Columbus 11 years ago, and they were looking to expand to other locations.  After a series of meetings with their executive team we landed the Murphy as one of the select few other locations for recording this series, found in more than 400 public television markets from coast to coast.  So starting this season if you catch their show on PBS you might recognize the stage and its surroundings on occasion. 

We also started an improv comedy class for adults called LAUGH-You, and have subsequently presented two public performances with this local cast of 17 performers as well as a handful of my improvisers from Maine that we flew in to be part of the shows.  

Another recent highlight was this past Labor Day, we served as the recording location for Governor DeWine, his wife Nan, and the grandkids, with Ohio’s upcoming 2025 movie campaign celebrating films about Ohio and made in Ohio, called, Ohio Goes to the Movies.  So in 2025 when you are at just about any movie theatre in Ohio and you’re watching the promos before the movie, you’re likely to see this short little piece starring the Governor, and you’ll recognize the theatre and some of the extras in the background, as most of them are members of my staff.   

In addition to these highlights, I am also happy to report that for the third year in a row we have set a new membership record, both in number of members as well as in the amount raised in membership.   

2024’s membership total surpassed last year’s membership total at the same time we were raising more than fifty-thousand dollars towards the marquee restoration campaign.  So the public is certainly excited and actively involved, that’s for sure. 

This record-setting membership support was crucial for us as it helped with our roughly $80,000.00 worth of roof repairs.  When you’re a 106-year old museum with a stage, the restoration work is never complete.  

Over the course of 2024 we saw 45 weekends with something exciting happening on the Murphy Theatre stage, including more than 20 national acts and concerts, such as the creators and voice actors from Animaniacs, Grammy® Award winning bands, and acts you’ve seen on The Grand Ole Opry, America’s Got Talent, and The Voice. 

We’ve shown more than twenty films, hosted more than ten community and charitable events, most of them free, like our Halloween Monster Mash afternoon where we saw approximately 500 children and parents come through our doors; and served as the preferred performance space for a number of school productions and dance concerts, all while being home to the Clinton County Community Band, which played four concerts, wrapping up with their annual Christmas Concert a couple hours prior to the Holidazzle parade.  And once again we were the venue for Rock the Block, and the Chamber of Commerce’s annual C-4 Awards. 

Through the generosity of our patrons, we also collected more than one thousand pounds of food and delivered to the local food pantries as part of our ongoing Food-raising, “A Can if you Can” Campaign. 

We also welcomed home, New York Times best-selling author and historian Timothy Snyder for a night, to read from his latest book and discuss the situation in the Ukraine. 

In the summer, Wake Up Wilmington, hosted by Charlie Hargrave, debuted from our bar and concessions we call Charlie’s.  Wake Up Wilmington is its own entity, not produced by The Murphy Theatre.  It’s a daily, (weekday), morning talk show, from 8 am to 10 am streaming online, covering all sorts of local topics. 

Our most recent feather in our cap is something we had been working on for the entire year, right after they wrapped filming Nutcrackers in mid-January.  Through numerous calls, emails, and conversations with Disney, then HULU we were selected as the one and only location to premiere the movie after it debuted at the Toronto Film Festival, and before it went to home streaming via HULU.  We held three free screenings for the community the weekend prior to Holidazzle, and welcomed more than 1,700 people over those three screenings.  We followed that up about a month later with ballet tech of ohio’s production of the actual Nutcracker Ballet, featuring the four young boys who starred in the movie.  This three performance weekend of The Nutcracker saw more than 1,500 people come through the Murphy doors, and about one-third of them were from out of town, and attending the Murphy Theatre for the very first time.   

We are members in good standing with a number of nationally known professional performing arts organizations, such as APAP which stands for Association of Performing Arts Professionals, LHAT, which means League of Historic American Theatres, and OAPN, Ohio Arts Professionals Network, of which I serve on their board of trustees, as does our Associate Director, Amanda Martin.  We attend conferences throughout the year all in an effort to improve on the ways we do things here, including shopping for the finest acts within our budget to bring to the theatre. 

We also have a weekly e-mail, called, Things from Steve that goes out to nearly 4000 people.  

We are also lucky to have a thriving bar and concessions, the aforementioned Charlie’s.  Not only is Charlie’s open prior to our shows, but we also rent it out to small organizations throughout the week; book groups, wedding showers, baby showers, private company parties, and even fantasy football awards ceremonies. Charlie’s is also the site for our monthly Smarty Pants Trivia, typically held on the first Tuesday night of each month.  We’ve been offering this entertaining night of trivia for more than two years, and attendance has grown to the point where reservations are required, or else you won’t get a seat.  

We also hosted an evening of gratitude for our Marquee Restoration Bulb contributors with a night of improv comedy called, “Lighten Up Wilmington”.   

This fall we were proud to host the Hope House Ten Year Anniversary with the international musical trio, called TAKE 3. 

Looking to 2025, it promises to be our most ambitious season ever, as we are planning on presenting no less than 25 concerts and national acts, 40 Friday Night Films, hoping to add a play or two with the Murphy Stage Company that we started in 2023, and a couple original programs that can only be found at The Murphy Theatre.  There’s even talk of bringing back, Dancing with the Stars.  And we’re even hosting a wrestling match. 

I am also meeting with one of the Executive Producers of Nutcrackers while in New York in a couple weeks while attending the APAP conference, to discuss a possible short series I’m putting together, that could be filmed at The Murphy Theatre, again bringing much attention and dollars to the community as a whole.  

Additionally, we hope to surpass our previous years’ membership numbers for the fourth year in a row, and increase our program advertising and sponsorships numbers.  We have been blessed with great season partnerships with local groups and businesses such as the Clinton County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Uptown Printing, The Hampton Inn, and  Clinton Memorial Hospital, and we hope to not only continue these relationships, but to expand and renew some partnerships as well. 

I am blessed by a wonderful, thoughtful, and supportive Board of Trustees, selfless volunteers, and the hardest working staff I wouldn’t trade for the world, a staff half the size of comparable theatre staffs in towns and theatres similar to our demographics.  We are in desperate need to add to our staffing, and I hope we find ways to accomplish this in 2025.     

Here’s a quick glance at The Murphy by some numbers... 

-In the past 3 years, The Murphy Theatre has been responsible for more than 350 hotel rooms, and that’s just for the acts, not counting the patrons that are staying in Wilmington that weekend for the concert.  So talk about your economic driver for the community.  Because every one of these people coming to these shows, eats dinner first, then if they stay the night, they’re shopping, and eating in the morning again, and most likely lunch. 

-We have seen more than 20,000 people come through our doors in 2024 alone.  

-In 2022 our memberships were at 285. 

-In 2023 we surpassed that record, and saw 299 memberships.   

-This past year, in 2024, we broke that record with a membership total of 346.  

-If our first month of 2025 is any indicator, we are on course for another record, with more than 110 

memberships taken out before the membership mailers even reached people’s homes. We are close to *35% of our goal, so things are going well, but we can always do better. 

(*Now nearly 50% of our goal since this presentation) 

Our 2025 season is entitled, And Now, for Something Completely Different.  But there’s plenty of old favorites coming back too.  

Our programming budget alone for 2025 will be more than $200,000.00.  We are bringing back Phil Dirt and the Dozers in just a couple weeks, and McGuffey Lane in February, Over the Rhine in April, Hotel California in June, Abba-Mania and Night Fever in November, and back by popular demand, a command return appearance by The Isaacs in late March.  We have other favorites such as Simply Queen, Let’s Hang On, and the Johnny Folsom Four, and a plethora of new acts to The Murphy, Foreigner’s Journey, Rhinestone Cowgirls, something for every taste this coming year, including a dog show, called Cirque Du Canines, a Taylor Swift tribute, and even more family-friendly programming and comedy than in years past.  You can expect the Murphy to have something happening for no less than 48 weekends in 2025.   

In the past three years the City Revitalization Grant (hotel tax) has been very helpful assisting us with our programming and marketing costs, as well as supplementing some of our continuing education and conference expenses.  In 2022 we received $60,000.00 from that grant, followed by $75,000.00 in 2023.  In 2024, our busiest year to date, we were awarded $11,000.00, earmarked specifically towards costs associated with The Isaac’s concert.  You’ll see the breakdown* on that in the paperwork I have provided you that the $11,000.00 made a nice dent in the $18,000.00 overall cost of that concert.  

In closing, for us, the most important takeaway from anyone’s experience at The Murphy Theatre is the way they are treated.  Customer service is key for us.  We like to say a night at The Murphy Theatre is more of a gathering, a reunion, a party, and most times a concert breaks out.  It’s all about getting to know our patrons, listening to their suggestions, their needs, and we do that at every concert.  I look up every suggestion anyone presents me for a possible act to play the Murphy stage.  And we even offer a quarterly, Coffee and Conversations with Donuts, a Saturday morning with free coffee and donuts and an open microphone for anyone to ask us anything they want about the theatre’s operations. 

Thank you for your time. 

-Steve Burnette, Executive Director 

*The breakdown mentioned was a handout I provided during my presentation before council.