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Robert Brinkley stepped into some very big shoes this summer, and we aren’t talking about these size 12 peep-toe slingbacks.
A chef by trade, Brinkley is now also owner and general manager of the Crown Uptown Theatre. He took over in June after Karen Morris, the widow of theater founder Ted Morris, announced she wanted to close the Wichita landmark. The public outcry was so strong and immediate, Brinkley says, that he couldn’t stand by and let the curtain fall on the Crown after 32 years in business.
“In this business, if you close your doors for any amount of time, you lose your customers,” Brinkley says. “I still run into people who think we’re closed.”
Not only is the Crown still open, it’s been re-energized. Apparently Wichitans didn’t realize what we had until it was almost gone, and now the box office is thriving. Brinkley has also made a few updates. He dropped the word “dinner” from the theatre’s name, although dinner theatre is still what they do. The sound system was upgraded for the new season, which kicked off last month with Chicago. And the theater will also be a venue for weddings and other events.
“One week we had a metal band here for a CD release party. The next weekend, it was a wedding reception. Then we had live dinner theater — all in 30 days,” Brinkley says.
This is a season of firsts as well — beginning with Chicago, all six shows in this season are Crown debuts. That’s one less show than they’ve offered in past years, designed to give the cast and crew more time to prepare. Brinkley says he’s also trying out new marketing techniques to attract fresh patrons, especially younger ones.
Brinkley, who graduated from West High in 1989, had already been serving as the Crown’s general manager when his Uptown Management Group LLC took ownership (Karen Morris still owns the historic building). He was also the executive chef there for six years.
When Morris told him she wanted to close, Brinkley said he thought not just of the sentimental reasons to stay open, but of the 30-plus employees who would be laid off — loyal, longtime workers. As patrons snapped up tickets to High School Musical, ostensibly the theater’s swan song, Brinkley scrambled to find the staff and supplies to cover the sellouts.
“I had waiters who told their others jobs, ‘I gotta be at the Crown.’ Every single one of my employees came in that weekend. In what other business would they do that?” he asks.
Brinkley wasn’t worried about himself, necessarily — he owns Friend That Cooks, a catering and personal chef business. Although there’s little time for it now, Brinkley says cooking is still his favorite way to relax.
“I cook at home as much as I can,” he says. “For me, it’s a release. I shut my phone off and cook dinner for my family,” which is his wife, Teri, and four kids.
Moving from the kitchen to the main office at the Crown has taught Brinkley the value of delegating, he says. Essentially he runs a mash-up of two businesses — a restaurant and a live theater. He’s got to sign off on all the big stuff from menus to stage lighting to marketing. It’s a lot to juggle, but he follows that old showbiz edict: “You make a mistake and you move on — the show must go on.”
So, too, will the Crown Uptown.
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