Deal may help Citi Center stage turnaround

Programming pact with N.Y. group could erase $1.9m deficit

In its latest push for survival, the Citi Performing Arts Center has signed a deal with Madison Square Garden Entertainment to give the New York institution a Boston branch in which to spread its brand of big-stage entertainment.

Audiences can expect to see more rock concerts, the arrival of Cirque du Soleil's family production "Wintuk," and return runs of the "Radio City Christmas Spectacular," which replaced Boston Ballet's "Nutcracker" in 2004.

The two entities signed a 10-year deal yesterday to share revenue on productions and concerts staged in the 3,600-seat Wang Theatre, which Citi Center manages. The deal does not include Citi's Shubert Theatre, the current home of Boston Lyric Opera. Citi Center hopes the deal will help it balance its budget, which ended the most recent year with about a $1.9 million deficit, and also spark activity at Boston's largest theater.

"There's never any solution that's the only solution, but I would tell you that this is something that has the potential to really provide the city with the new and vibrant and broad-based programming it deserves," said Citi Center president Josiah Spaulding Jr.

As part of the deal, MSG Entertainment will give Citi Center $2 million to support its nonprofit mission through audience development initiatives and community outreach, including the annual Shakespeare on the Boston Common production.

For the New York company, the deal means it no longer needs to find a suitable local theater to buy.

In recent years, MSG Entertainment bought the Beacon Theatre in New York and the Chicago Theatre in Illinois. The Citi Center arrangement will make it easier to tour a big production, therefore reducing financial risks.

"We will try to book in tandem wherever possible," said Jay Marciano, president of MSG Entertainment. "Every time we swing the bat on a new production, the more markets we have the capacity to spread out the risks, the better the bet starts to look. Boston is a terrific market."

In addition to "Wintuk," look for the Wang to host a version of a speaker series featured at Radio City, Spaulding said.

The deal also means Citi Center can split revenues - and risk - as opposed to renting the Wang in exchange for only concession revenue, or investing in its own works. That has left Citi Center struggling to break even. Most of last year's $1.9 million loss came from the commercial presentations it made, including "White Christmas."

Harvard Business School professor Jay Lorsch said that Citi Center's struggles highlight the gap between local theaters and the area's strongest arts institutions financially, such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Museum of Fine Arts.

"And in a sense this is just an extension of that notion we are somehow connected to New York," he said. "In another sense, the more [these sorts of deals] happen, the more we lose a bit of our local institutions which also mean so much to the city."

Author Joel Kotkin, who writes about the distinctiveness of cities, said the MSG Entertainment deal serves to make Boston more generic.

"It's the equivalent of saying McDonald's is going to cultivate Boston cuisine," he said.

But in a press release prepared by Citi Center, Paul Guzzi, president of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and Pat Moscaritolo, president of the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, praised the deal for helping provide stability to a local institution.

Over the last year, Citi Center lost one of its chief local tenants, Boston Ballet, which decided to move its entire season to the Opera House beginning in 2009. Earlier this summer, Citi Center returned $75,000 to the Boston Foundation because it was unable to sign mergers with other organizations, a requirement of a grant provided by the foundation. Citi Center would have received $150,000 if it had been able to sign two mergers.

Spaulding said the Boston Ballet's exit played into the decision to sign with MSG Entertainment.

"The ballet took up 'X' numbers of weeks a year and 'X' numbers of earned revenue," he said. "This was an opportunity to try to find new ways to put shows on the stage."

MSG Entertainment has hired Bob Shea, a former senior vice president of booking for Live Nation, to handle Boston and work with Citi Center.

Neither Spaulding nor Marciano would say how many dates will be filled by MSG Entertainment, but Marciano said bookings increased by 25 percent at the Beacon and Chicago theaters after the company took over. Over the past fiscal year, the Wang held 106 performances.

"This is about a building block," said Spaulding. "It is our hope that over the next three years we are building to a point that this building is occupied almost every single day of the year."

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com.