Broadway Center: Smackdown!

After the closure of Tacoma Actors Guild on March 4, the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts has been searching for a new tenant to fill the Theatre on the Square, the 302-seat theater TAG has occupied since the early 1990s.

David Fischer, Executive Director of the Broadway Center, announced today they had found a new tenant for the space: professional wrestling.

Starting tonight, WWE Friday Night SmackDown! will host wrestling events every Friday night at Theatre on the Square. Matches will be broadcast on the CW live from Tacoma.

“We are pleased to find a tenant that is so popular with the masses,” said David Fischer in a statement earlier today. “The Friday Night SmackDown! will be a great way to draw people to our wonderful venue.”

Arts groups around Tacoma roundly criticized the move. “The Broadway Center has sold our their soul,” said Kathryn Smith, Director of the Tacoma Opera and a resident organization of the performing arts center. “The arts should not have to share space with a sporting event. When Tacoma Opera staged Carmen last week, we really grabbed our audience with the fierce rivalries, love triangles, and great fight scenes … hmm. Maybe wrestling will actually be a good way to grab new audiences. I can see the brochures now — ‘Carmen: Just like the SmackDown!, but with singing!’”

Fischer believes other arts organizations will similarly come around on the deal. To make the bitter pill easier to swallow, he’s proposed special matches on Thursday ArtWalk nights that keep the spirit of TAG alive.

On April 19, expect to see “Something Wicked This Way Comes: MacBeth vs Hamlet,” where the wrestlers will be in period costume. At the May ArtWalk, “Two Gentlemen of Verona vs Two Noble Kinsmen.” And the Tacoma Arts Commission has already given its support to a new Pierce County Playwright’s Competition where playwrights will be pitted against each other in the ring for the chance to produce a show at the theatre.

“It’s a good thing we put that Carl’s Jr in the lobby of the Pantages,” Fischer said. “I think we’re going to sell a lot more burgers.”

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