This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A rainmaker, in business parlance, is an employee who brings in a significant amount of money for the firm. The Rainmaker also happens to be the name of the next play to be performed at the publicly funded Hale Centre Theatre in West Valley City, the house that your tax dollars built.
The title couldn't be more appropriate and the timing couldn't be better. Thanks to the political connections of its executives, the theater has an unprecedented pipeline to the public treasury.
And the theater's rainmakers do not go unrewarded. While the actors at the 530-seat venue are paid as little as $30 per performance, top executives are drenched with six-figure salaries that are small by Hollywood standards, but huge for Utah.
Hale Theatre President and CEO Mark Dietlein; his wife, executive producer Sally Dietlein; and executive producer Sally Hale Rice are each paid $110,000 per year; while the top five administrators receive a combined $531,000, plus company cars. This compares to the national average of $88,000 for administrators at theaters with similar-sized budgets, and dwarfs the $63,000 paid to the director of the Utah Shakespearean Festival, the state's largest professional acting company.
In addition, the Dietleins' own Red Rock Leasing LLC, which provides stage sets and props for the Hale theater under an exclusive contract worth $132,000 per year.
No doubt, the theater is popular. It specializes in family-oriented productions and sold 200,000 tickets last year. But despite that success, your tax dollars and donations are subsidizing those exorbitant salaries.
Since 2002, the theater has received $3.25 million in Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts and Parks program funding, including $857,536 last year.
But it's a $185,000 gift from the state Legislature - an annual appropriation of $100,000 and a one-time stipend of $85,000 (including $50,000 to Hale's Orem theater) - that's stirred the waters in the arts community. The state's 227 arts groups typically receive state assistance by competing for a pool of funds administered by the Utah Arts Council. But Hale theater officials tapped their connections on Capitol Hill, unfairly bypassing traditional channels.
Enough is enough. Community theaters subsidized by taxpayers are supposed to benefit everyone, not a select few.
The Hale theater rainmakers need to pocket less. The actors need to make more. And state legislators need to turn off the tap.