RUNAWAY SUCCESS: A 10-YEAR-OLD PERFORMING ARTS CENTER UNDERPINS DOWNTOWN DURHAM'S TRANSFORMATION FROM DISREPAIR TO DYNAMIC.

• Author: Perlmutt, David
• Position: FIRST TAKE

Luann and Bill Hartman of Virginia Beach, Va., are Broadway aficionados, taking in eight or nine of the latest touring plays and musicals each year. Though the 2,500-seat Chrysler Hall in Norfolk is only 30 minutes away, the couple prefers to drive three and a half hours to downtown Durham, to a sparkling, $49 million theater that has helped rebirth the Bull City into a hip, cultural hub.

The Hartmans, both 51 and retired, had never been to Durham until five years ago, when they bought tickets to see Jersey Boys (Luann's "absolute fave" musical) at the Durham Performing Arts Center, affectionately called DP AC. The three-story, 2,712seat venue, a glass-clad monolithic structure unveiled in November 2008 amid the Great Recession, anchors a corner of a block on the southern edge of downtown just off N.C. 147. It shares a block with the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and is across Blackwell Street from the iconic American Tobacco Campus, formerly industrialist James B. Duke's giant cigarette-manufacturing company, which has been restored into 1 million square feet of offices, shops, apartments and restaurants.

By the time the Hartmans discovered Durham, the downtown bore little resemblance to a few years earlier, when it had much vacant real estate. "We fell in love with DP AC and Durham, too," Luann says. "The restaurants there are amazing, the parking's easy, and the people at DP AC are over-the-top friendly and make each experience memorable. Each year, we look at the lineup for Chrysler Hall and we say, 'Oh, we saw those [shows] at DPAC two years ago.'"

In its 10 seasons, DPAC has exceeded expectations, drawing nearly 5 million visitors. In each of the last eight years, it has ranked among the top five best-attended U.S. theaters, alongside New York's Radio City Music Hall, Las Vegas' Colosseum at Caesars Palace and Atlanta's Fox Theatre, according to Billboard magazine and other publications that track attendance. Initially, General Manager Bob Klaus and others figured they'd need to sell 8,000 to 10,000 season tickets for DPAC's Broadway series to be self-sustainable. This year, they sold 18,000.

When it opened, officials expected the facility to draw 80 events a year. It now averages 200 to 250, luring favorites such as The Lion King, Wicked, The King and I and every Tony Award winner for Best Musical since it opened, Klaus says. The upcoming season's headliner is the 11-Tony Award winner Hamilton, in town for a monthlong run starting in...