Blutrach celebrates 10 years of El Picadero: Having a theater is choosing a way of life

Theatrical producer and businessman Sebastián Blutrach, who this Monday will celebrate the 10th anniversary of El Picadero, the mythical Buenos Aires theater that survived an attack during the military dictatorship and that today reinvents itself between innovative proposals and musical cycles on the terrace, highlights that ” having a theater is choosing a way of life”.

“Having a theater is having the phone open 24×24, it’s a clock that doesn’t stop, that’s why I always quote a phrase from Carlitos Rottemberg that says that ‘theater entrepreneurs are theatre, not theater entrepreneurs because there are no cold numbers that close’ , says Blutrach sitting in front of the desk he has on the first floor of his living room, located at Pasaje Santos Discépolo 1875.

In his personal history, the Picadero was the corollary of a long road that began in the late 1980s as a producer of theatrical hits in Spain, which he continued as theater coordinator in Buenos Aires, and which in 2012 materialized as the desire to manage a own space.

“At that time I was working a lot with Daniel Veronese and we were looking for a shed for an independent theater. When I came to see El Picadero, which was for sale, I was hooked but Daniel told me it was too big so I continued alone,” he recalls.

The place, which was first a spark plug factory, became at the end of the 70s a room promoted by Guadalupe Noble together with Antonio Mónaco that aimed to break with the classic model and that opened its doors in July 1980. A year later was selected to represent the Open Theater cycle, but the response of the de facto government was magnesium bombs that completely destroyed it.

Thirty years later, in which it functioned as a warehouse, it reopened as a theater in 2001 but due to the crisis it closed again a year later.

“It is a mythical theater rather than a historical one because it resonates in the unconscious of the theatrical community for being the headquarters of Teatro Abierto, which was the strongest cultural resistance movement against the military dictatorship, but it had no history as a theater in operation” , Explain.

“The beauty of that story -he adds- is that the money that made El Picadero reopen came from theatrical successes and not from other businesses: the money from the theater returns to the theater. My sponsors are not banks but ‘The Grönholm method’, ‘Gorda’, ‘Dos menos’, ‘Toc, toc’ among other hits”.

Télam: What did you have in mind artistically for your own room?

Sebastián Blutrach: What I was somewhat of a pioneer in, and which I had already done at the Metropolitan, was to merge independent theater with something more commercial. Here I made a schedule from Monday to Monday because towards the weekend I could financially request performance from the productions and during the week or non-core schedules they helped me to put together an editorial line for the space. And having the restaurant downstairs also generates a flow of people. The restaurant thing comes from when Veronese and I used to tour France and all the public theaters had their own restaurant. So I proposed that it be a meeting point between the casts.

T: With what work did you open the room?

SB: “Forever Young”, which is a musical that I had seen in Madrid. It was one of those angelated works that could have been a stick because no actor was known but it went so well that the first week we sold 400 tickets, the second 550, then 650 and then 1500. It was more than a year and for the actors we opened El Picadero it was a very special thing. That’s why for the 10 years we said “let’s do it and make it a party”.

T: What balance do you make of these 10 years?

SB: The last two were horrible, but balance sheets are never 100% happy anyway. Having a theater is having the phone open 24×24, it’s a clock that doesn’t stop. I opened the terrace during the pandemic to be able to use it and I spent more than a million pesos to waterproof it. In that there is a phrase by Carlitos Rottemberg that says that “theater managers are playwrights, not theater managers because there are no cold numbers that close”. Having a theater is choosing a way of life. If I want to do this, it is a good decision, if someone comes who is not part of their life, it is a mess.

T: What were the most representative emblems of these ten years?

SB: Emblematic works such as “Forever Young”, “Traición” with Paola Krum, Hendler and Diego Velázquez directed by Ciro Zorzoli passed through El Picadero; “Autumn Sonata” by Veronese with Cristina Vanegas. I remember a year that I had Elena Roger doing “Ay Carmela”, “Idiota” with Luis Machín, “The Little Pony” with Nelson Valente. And now I’m very happy: we reached 10 years with four own productions, all very different and attractive. “Forever”, “Pack”, “The Dogs” and finally “Lapland”. I feel that El Picadero has always been an avant-garde theater and what makes me most proud has to do with identification: today, when people come, they know what they are coming to see, due to themes or artistic quality.

Since I don’t have the number of seats for a hit, I always thought of it as a boutique space for the actors themselves: because of the dressing room, the technique, the proximity to the audience, the acoustics, they say “I want to go to the Picadero”. There are impersonal places and El Picadero is a beloved and respected space for the artistic community.

T: What balance do you make of the years of the pandemic?

SB: I did my best at every stage. When it was possible to stream at home I did it from Juan Quintero’s house, when they said it could be done from the theater we did it and when it could be done outdoors we said “let’s open the terrace” and Susana Rinaldi, Ligia Piro, Lidia Borda were there , Rita Cortese; it was a luxury. We were locked up and at 12 we had to leave because circulation was cut off and it was a very distressing moment. Economically it was not a solution but it was a healer.

T: What is the biggest challenge of doing theater today?

SB: Stay. Forever. When you see a long career of a producer, it is that he overcame the challenge because it is very easy to hit a stick in this profession, more so in Argentina. This is a very risky activity in a very risky country. Almost suicidal. Anyone who makes pants, if they go wrong, they sell them for 50% of the value, but if you do a play and it goes wrong, it costs you 120% because no one comes and you have to maintain contacts for two months. I am 53 and I am already beginning to see generations below me, protagonists, and like any thoughtful person I begin to ask myself if I am in tune, if I am staying out and you are evaluating how much you are willing to change and how much you are not and when you reach the limit you take a step to the side. I hope to have the lucidity when the time comes. (Telam)

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