Powerhouse Downtown Cheer invites community to shop local, support art

LACONIA — This holiday season, shopping local is easy with Powerhouse Downtown Cheer, an initiative aimed at supporting local arts and local businesses in the city.

Powerhouse Theatre Collaborative, the resident theater company of the Colonial Theatre, is partnering with local businesses to offer a new version of the Powerhouse Perks program, which encourages local shopping and engagement with the arts.

Shoppers will have a chance to win free tickets to this year’s holiday production of "A Christmas Carol: The Musical Ghost Story" at the Colonial Theatre, Dec. 11-14. Almost 20 local businesses are participating, and shoppers can earn discounts and other perks at their storefronts — many businesses are offering both.

“I think it's critical to support our brick and mortar downtown businesses, if we don’t support them, they won’t be here,” Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce President Karmen Gifford said Wednesday morning.

The Lakes Region, a tourist area, experiences commerce in yearly cycles, primarily in the summer and winter. Supporting local businesses, particularly during the holiday season, helps ensure they stick around all year long. 

“The holidays are very important, it’s a high-sales time,” Gifford said. 

Powerhouse Downtown Cheer will run Saturday, Nov. 29, through the end of the "A Christmas Carol" production on Sunday, Dec. 14.

At each participating business, shoppers can enter a drawing to win two tickets to the show, which is sure to pack the venue. Drawing of winning tickets at each participating business will occur on Saturday, Dec. 6, and winners will be contacted with instructions to redeem their tickets. Shoppers can enter to win at all participating shops, increasing their chances of winning.

The program originated through efforts by Mary Ann Drapcho, who went around to downtown businesses distributing posters advertising Powerhouse productions. She’s the one who found a way to encourage a symbiotic relationship between the theater and local stores, Powerhouse Producer Bryan Halperin said.

“Anything that helps drive people into businesses downtown is a win-win for everybody,” Halperin said.

Drapcho, herself a frequent participant in Powerhouse productions — recently as Mrs. Claus, and in the choir for "A Christmas Carol" — said Tuesday the drawing is free and she hopes it will encourage engagement with both local businesses and the theater.  

“It’s to encourage people to walk into the store, especially our downtown stores because they’re so charming,” she said. 

“Part of our vision of community theater is to bring the community together,” Drapcho said. “We are very grateful for everything the merchants have done. There’s a broad spectrum of community involvement and merchant involvement — Main Street is thriving.”

For Drapcho, it helps everyone. A customer could, for example, purchase their tickets ahead of time, and then have a date night out at one of the local stores at a discount. If they win one of the drawings, they could give the extra tickets to friends or family, so they could enjoy the show, too. 

“That’s a great date night,” Drapcho said.

“I want people to come for opening night, it’s such a good show,” she said. “The songs are beautiful.”

Businesses participating in Powerhouse Dowtown Cheer are NH Vintage Vinyl, Wild Woman Studio, Commune-a-Tea, Blade and Broom, Innisfree Bookshop, Laconia Village Bakery, New Leaf, Shield Comics, MC Cycle & Sport, The Studio. Fresh Downtown, The Candy Bar, Koung Sushi, Daub’s Cobbler Shop, Piedmont Print and Frame, Trillium Farm to Table, Che Bella, Bayside Service and The Italian Market.

To find out if a specific business is offering a perk, drawing, or both, visit powerhousenh.org/powerhouse-perks. Tickets to "A Christmas Carol" are available at the box office and online, and most businesses require tickets or ticket confirmation to qualify for their perk. Tickets to the show are available at powerhousenh.org or coloniallaconia.com.

“'A Christmas Carol' has become our big annual event where the vast majority of our cast returns, every year,” Halperin said. That dynamic allows the cast and crew to focus on innovation, making measured improvements each year, because they’ve got the basics down. “I definitely feel like it has the potential to be the best we’ve had yet.”

Contact info@powerhousenh.org with questions about Powerhouse Downtown Cheer or any other Powerhouse programming.

“Local businesses help promote Powerhouse all year long by displaying our posters and spreading the word about our productions,” Halperin wrote in a media release. “This is a way we can show our appreciation by spreading the word to our patrons about our Laconia business friends. So head to the Laconia box office to get your tickets and while you’re downtown, go check out our great local businesses.”