Now we’re getting down to business, Brett thought. “It comes down to what you want to do,” he said. “Like I told you on the phone, if it’s a one-shot event, or even an annual event, no big deal. The easy way to do it would be to bring in a group that’s already doing a production somewhere as a road show. For instance, I know of a group setting up to do Arsenic and Old Lace this summer. While it’s been around forever, it’s a good play, commonly known, and fairly easy to produce. It can be done as a modern piece, although I think it works better in the original period piece. There would be some costs involved to bring that group in, and costs for your dinner, but when you get down to the bottom line, from your viewpoint it wouldn’t be any great trick. It would make a fun weekend for your customers.”

“We could do that,” Samantha agreed. “I can see how it could be fun and increase our exposure a little. But I think my vision was a little grander. I’ll admit to thinking of doing it as a regular thing, say, every weekend or most weekends.”

“Then things get a lot more complicated,” Brett said. “It might be possible to bring in three or four different groups over the course of the summer to put on a pre-packaged performance like that. I’d have to do some hunting around to find someone to do them, but again it’s no great trick since the people you’d need are out there and all I’d have to do is find them. I know where to look, so that’ll ease things some. But an every-weekend performance gets a lot more complicated, and you’d have to make a serious effort to make it work. It almost begs the question of whether you plan on being in the wine business or the theater business.”

“Oh, we’re definitely in the wine business,” Marty nodded, obviously considering Brett’s statement. “But just for the sake of discussion, let’s consider Samantha’s approach, something going on every weekend. That ought to give us a little better idea of what would be involved.”

“All right. Let’s get right down to the basics then. Are you looking to make a profit on this?”

“Of course,” the older man replied. “We’re not in this business to lose money. I think I can say that I’d be happy to not make much on a dinner theater production, if it draws more people through here. We’d make out in the long run.”

“That makes it more complicated right there,” Brett explained. “Look, let’s consider the economics of a dinner theater. To simplify things a little, you have three revenue sources. First, front-door ticket prices, assuming you’re going to charge for the show at all, which is an item to consider all by itself. Second, meals. Third, drinks. I’ve done a few dinner theater productions, and I had one guy tell me that he hoped to cover the costs of the performance with tickets and food, and really make his money on the booze.”

“That makes sense,” Marty agreed. “It strikes me that we could afford to lose a little on the tickets and food, but wine sales would make up for it.”

“That’s how I see it. In fact, I’ll bet you’d want to just about have the place floating on a sea of expensive wine.”

“Well, maybe not floating, but not discounting it any,” the older man nodded. “Of course, we couldn’t go above our normal prices, either, because the regulars would know.”

“A little discount might sell more overall,” Samantha pointed out. “It wouldn’t surprise me that a ten percent cut in prices for the show would result in more than a ten percent increase in sales.”

“True,” Marty agreed. “But it’s only true if we had an unlimited supply of wine available. We have a large amount, but it’s finite, and our prices reflect the limited supply. But that’s a side issue and you and I can argue about it some other time. However, we need to keep in mind that the real purpose of this is to sell wine. Brett, what about tickets and food?”

“I can’t help you much on food, since I’ve never been around the restaurant business. Now, that much said, if this were a real restaurant with a kitchen and staff, having a full menu would be a possibility. However, if you were to do a more limited menu, maybe a buffet, you’d simply cover the cost of the meal with the ticket price up front.”

“We have a kitchen,” Samantha told him. “In fact, it’s a fairly nice one. We have a hall around the corner we often rent out for banquets and events like wedding receptions. We had one very nice wedding and reception here last summer. The wedding was out by the pond, and the reception was in the hall, with a catered dinner. I thought it was very elegantly done, and it came off very nicely.”

“We sold a hell of a lot of wine,” Marty smiled. “Chuck and I just about ran ourselves ragged bringing it up from the cellar after we blew through what we already had upstairs. The bride’s father was paying for it all, of course, and he had a lot to pay for. I’ll take a deal like that anytime I can get it. Unfortunately, we don’t get them often enough.”

Brett remembered some of the prices he’d seen on bottles of wine around the tasting room and realized that the bride’s father must have written one hell of a check for his daughter’s reception. “You’d know more about that part of it than I would,” he told the Ammermans. “But to get back to tickets and food, since you neither have a restaurant or a large staff, you’re probably looking at having your meal catered, with only a limited menu. Say, prime rib, with chicken available for those who don’t like beef, or something. As I said, I’m no expert on that. My guess is that you’d want to serve it as a buffet, which might keep the staff more manageable. Anyway, that argues for having the meal as part of the ticket price, but with the wine being extra.”

“It would almost have to be that way,” Marty agreed. “Without looking at the rules, I would guess that the state would not look favorably at having wine as part of the cover charge.”

“You’re probably right,” Brett smiled. “And that overlooks the idea that someone might only have a glass or two over the course of the evening, while the next guy might go through a couple bottles and have trouble walking out the door.”

“Possibly one free glass of wine,” Samantha offered, “with the cost included in the cover charge, of course. Everything else could be sold by the bottle.”

“Again, that’s something we’d have to work out,” Marty nodded. “It doesn’t have to be decided right now. Besides, we haven’t looked at expenses. The ticket prices would have to reflect them, possibly with some help from the wine sales.”

“I can’t help you on catering prices,” Brett told them. “You’d have to work that part out with a local caterer or two.”

“I don’t really know much about the numbers,” Samantha said. “But just based on some things I’ve heard from people who’ve used the rental hall, they don’t come cheaply, and their prices depend on what they’re serving. Prime rib is going to go higher than chicken, for example. However, if we did decide to do a full summer season with several shows a week, it might be worth investigating bringing a few people on board on a part-time basis to do the food ourselves.”

“It could be,” Brett replied, thinking that, while Samantha often sounded like a pompous twit, she really did have a head on her shoulders. “Once again, you would have to be the ones to work it out. It’s not my area of expertise.”

“Those are details that others can help us with,” Marty said. “We’d at least have some idea on where to start. However, as I recall Shakespeare saying, ‘The play’s the thing.’ What is that going to cost?”

“Once you get past a minimum figure, the sky is the limit,” Brett replied honestly.

“What’s the minimum figure?”

“The absolute bottom line? Well, as a for-instance, there’s a play called Same Time Next Year. It’s pretty popular, even though it was first produced, hell, thirty or forty years ago.”

“I remember seeing it once upon a time,” Samantha nodded with a smile. “About a couple who stages a one-night affair every year. If I remember correctly, it was very enjoyable.”

“Right,” Brett smiled. “I’ve done it several times with a girl I know. She’s a pro, like me, and every now and then we get called to put it on. Either I get asked and call her to join me, or she gets asked and calls me. I think either of us could do it in our sleep, but when we do perform that one we usually take the time to give it a run-through to make sure we’re up on our lines. For a single performance, we usually charge five hundred dollars each, plus travel and motel expenses, of course. We have taken less than that for a charity gig, but sometimes we charge more if the traffic will bear. But figure a thousand for the two of us as a base line, just as a starting point.”

“In one sense of the word, that’s not too bad, I guess,” Marty replied dubiously. “What happens if you do two or three shows on a weekend?”

“We charge more,” Brett smiled. “Not the full five hundred apiece for each showing, of course, but more. It’s negotiable, again depending on the circumstances. Say, a thousand or twelve hundred for three shows, although it’s been a while since we’ve done it that way. Now, on top of that, there are other expenses. Royalties on that show, for a pretty small house, I think the last time I looked it was something like thirty-five or fifty bucks. It’s on a sliding scale based on ticket prices, the size of the audience, and a few other things.”

“That’s not too bad,” Samantha replied brightly.

“Like I said, that’s a bottom line and things go up from there. There are shows out there that could cost a thousand bucks in royalties for a pretty small theater. But they’re more recent and better-known plays that will draw an audience from name recognition. Say, Phantom of the Opera, assuming it could be put on here even in a pretty compact production, could cost approximately an arm and a leg just for royalties, and that doesn’t even get started on the additional casting and production costs.”

“I doubt we’d be that ambitious,” she replied dryly, then smiled, “It would be fun to think about, though.”

“It would be a big enough deal that I wouldn’t want to even think about it,” Brett replied, “if it could even be put on here. I don’t even have an idea of how big a room we’re talking about, or what you have to work with.”

“Let’s go look,” Marty suggested.

The three of them got up, and Brett followed his hosts through a pair of double doors and down a short hall to the banquet room, which was filled with a mixture of round and rectangular tables of various sizes, with comfortable looking chairs. They were good ones with some padding, not folding metal ones. At first glance, it was a bigger room than it appeared to be from the outside, with a high vaulted ceiling space. There were beams for the roof going through the room perhaps twelve feet in the air. “No supporting columns, so that’s good,” Brett opined. “That means everyone gets a clear view of the stage, which probably ought to be down to the left, assuming you want everyone coming in from the front of the building.”

“Maybe it would be better to have them coming through the tasting room,” Samantha suggested. “The kitchen is back to the left, so I would think it would be better for the audience to have that activity behind them.”

“Yeah, you’re right on that,” Brett said, walking down toward the far end of the building, with his hosts following along. “How many people can you seat in here?”

“We’re allowed a hundred and sixty,” Marty told him, “but that packs it pretty tight. With tables in here like they are now, we’re set up for a little less than that.”

“You’re going to lose some table space for the stage, so that means maybe a hundred and twenty-five, just guessing. There’s no provision for a back stage or side stage, but maybe that’s something that can be dealt with.”

“Would we really need a stage?” Marty asked.

“Definitely,” Brett told him. “One of the real purposes of a stage is to get the actors up enough so that people in the back can see them. There’s room to go up two or three feet here, and that would be fine. It would only be lumber to build it, a few hundred bucks for a temporary job that would do for the odd weekend or two, more than that to do it right if you were going to do a lot of productions. Look, the two of you just stand here, and we can talk while I walk around the room so I can get an idea of the acoustics.”

“All right,” Marty agreed. “Let’s use your example of Same Time Next Year. How much is it going to cost for the set?”

“For that show, peanuts,” he said as he started to walk away from them. “A few flats, and they’re the kind of thing you could re-use sooner or later. The show is set in a cheap motel, so all it takes is the kind of furniture most people have sitting around their attics. Other shows, well, it can cost more, but that’s usually one of the cheaper things to deal with. He glanced overhead and continued, “That first crossbeam up there would simplify hanging a curtain if you decided you really needed one, and the next one out would be a good place for lights. You’d be stuck with fixed lighting, but at least for something like Same Time Next Year that would be more than enough.”

“How much would lighting cost?”

“A few hundred bucks to do it cheaply, more to do it right, but either way it would serve you for a long time. There might be the odd production where you’d have to fiddle with the lighting a little, but it could all be done ahead of time.” He turned and walked farther away trying to imagine a play being put on in this room. It looked like something that could be done.

“How big a production could you put on here?” Samantha asked; he could hear her clearly from half the room away.

“Not real big,” he replied. “You’re not going to be putting on Phantom of the Opera here, that’s for sure. It just means you have to be a little more selective. That’s not all bad. Smaller shows mean smaller casts, smaller royalties, and generally lower expenses.”

“This is already turning out to be a little more than I anticipated,” Marty replied, sounding dubious. “There’s more expense than I figured.”

“True, but a lot of it is a one-time expense. Once you’ve set it up, it’ll be here for the future.”

“Maybe a stage with the lighting isn’t such a bad idea,” Samantha said. “I mean, I’m thinking of that wedding reception last year. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have the bridal party a little more the focus of attention than they were, with lights on them?”

“I don’t know,” Marty replied. “Three feet might put them up in the air too much. A foot and a half or two feet might be better, but you’re right, it would have made things a little nicer.”

“It’s something to consider,” she said. “I think I like the idea.”

“We can consider it,” he told his wife. “Brett, what do you think about the acoustics?”

By now Brett was near the back of the room. “Not bad,” he said. “Whoever is talking on stage would have to project his voice a little, but any pro is going to know how to do that. There’s a little echo, but I’d expect that in an empty room. If you got it even half full of people it would go away. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to have some hangings on the wall, and maybe a few paintings or something. That would tend to deaden the sound some more.”

“I’m sure it would be easy enough to promote a few paintings,” she replied. “We could even have them for sale on a commission basis.”

“We’re talking about my tastes now,” Brett told her. “But that’s something you might not want to overdo. You don’t want too many distractions.”

“The play’s the thing, right?”

“You got it,” he replied. “In a dinner theater, there are already some distractions with wait staff running around and whatnot, but while the dinner is going on, it probably wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that. Maybe someone playing a guitar or something, just something light, eating music, not really a performance of itself. But that’s a detail to consider.”

“So what do you think of this room for a theater?” she asked.

“Not bad,” Brett replied. “Better than I expected. It would be on the intimate side, which is not all bad, as it brings the audience into the scene a little. It would take a little work to do it right, and you’d be rather limited in the performances you could have, but there’s nothing wrong with that, either. Select the right plays and it would be great. At the same time, you wouldn’t want to have an intimate little show like Same Time Next Year on a huge stage like the one in Radio City Music Hall, either, so the small size isn’t a disadvantage.”

“I feel like I’ve learned a lot already,” Marty said. “How about we take you on a nickel tour of the rest of the place, just so you can have an idea of what else is here, and then we can go warm up our coffee. Or, if you wish, try a little wine?”

“It’s still a little early for wine, at least for me,” he said as the Ammermans walked toward him. “But coffee sounds good.”

The two of them gave him a quick tour of the rest of the rambling old mill; there was more to it than he had realized. The kitchen, for example, looked large enough to him to prepare a banquet for the size of the hall, not that he knew much about it.

One of the things that surprised Brett the most was a small room not far from the kitchen that contained a printing press and other printing machinery. “Small print shops have gone the way of the dinosaur,” Marty explained. “It got very hard to get our labels printed. Now my dad was a printer and I grew up with it, so I bought this press and production equipment at an auction just to print our own labels. It’s very relaxing, although I wouldn’t want to do it as a fulltime job.”

There were several rooms devoted to various stages of the wine production; Marty’s description of the process left Brett only slightly better informed of how it was done than he had been before, except that he could see it was more complicated than he imagined. There were many oak barrels of wine going through some aging process he didn’t understand; in a stone cellar there were racks with hundreds of cases of wine. “That’s a heck of a lot of wine. Do you grow all your grapes in that field I saw outside?”

“Only a small part of it comes out of that field,” Marty admitted. “That’s mostly a display field for the customers, although we do use it for some wines. We have contracts with local vineyards who produce most of our grapes, and yes, it does come to several truckloads of grapes. Picking season, mostly in the early fall, is always an interesting time around here. Turning the grapes into wine is a process that goes on most of the year. Sometimes it’s fairly busy, other times not.”

“That seems like a lot of grapes to stomp.”

“No one does it that way anymore,” Marty smirked. “No, it takes a lot of rather specialized machinery, but we have it and we use it.”

“It seems like that would take a lot of the romance out of it.”

“Oh, I’m sure it does,” Marty laughed, “but smell the inside of your shoe the next time you take it off. Tell me, would you want to drink that smell?”

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