Doug Trapp and Julia Dennis portray Leo Bloom and Ulla in Mel Brooks’ The Producers, at Theatre By The Sea earlier this summer.

Mark Turek

Bill Hanney, the new owner of Theatre By The Sea, was nervous going into the summer season. With a tanking economy, he figured people were going to be more concerned with filling their gas tanks and buying groceries than spending money on a night out at the theater.

But now that the dust is beginning to settle on Matunuck’s first full season in five years, Hanney said the company not only survived but went through the summer with “flying colors.”

“It couldn’t have gone better,” he said of the season that wrapped up last weekend. “And to have ended with The Producers. I said, ‘How are we going to top this?’ ”

The Producers, the irreverent Mel Brooks comedy that won a record dozen Tonys, was the summer’s big hit. The show, which closed last Sunday, played to more than 90 percent capacity, said Hanney, who bought Theatre By The Sea last June for $1.5 million. And the show brought in many new ticket buyers.

The theater, in fact, picked up something like 6,000 new patrons this summer, people who hadn’t subscribed and who didn’t attend last summer’s single offering, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

In addition, the theater has about 5,000 subscribers, who will begin renewing their subscriptions in the coming weeks.

Hanney said the theater still has a ways to go before it reaches the near capacity numbers posted before Matunuck was sold by FourQuest Entertainment in 2003, but he feels it is on the right track.

“We’ve got to build trust,” said Hanney, who owns a string of movie theaters, “and I think we did a good job starting that.”

But did the theater make money?

That’s hard to say, because the final figures aren’t in yet. But Hanney said he doesn’t believe it lost money.

“We set budgets and tend not to go over them,” he said.

He added, though, that the renovated restaurant right next to the theater, now named Bistro by the Sea, was busy all summer. Hanney said he showed up on a recent Wednesday night with a producer friend and couldn’t get a seat at a table.

“This summer the restaurant went through the roof,” he said. “If it didn’t make any money, I’m giving up.”

The season opened May 28 with the musical revue Ain’t Misbehavin’, and followed that up with George M!, the patriotic musical about Rhode Island-born song-and-dance-man George M. Cohan, and then Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita. Each show did better than the previous one when it came to the box office, said producing artistic director Amiee Turner.

The goal was to offer four very different shows that transformed the historical 500-seat barn theater into four distinct environs.

“I don’t think we had a show where someone didn’t come up to me and say, ‘That was the best,’ ” said Turner, who directed both George M! and Evita.

Looking ahead to next summer, the theater will put on four shows that have never been seen before on the Theatre By The Sea stage. The season opens with My Way, a revue featuring Frank Sinatra standards, and continues with Crazy for You, with music by George and Ira Gershwin, and Peter Pan. The season ends with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the madcap smash about two dueling conmen who set out to swindle an heiress out of $50,000.

The goal, said Turner, is to get more people in to see the first production. Shows opening in May tend not to draw big crowds because people have yet to settle into their summer schedules. She said the theater expects to have a “couple of tricks up its sleeve” when it comes to My Way, which will be a Rhode Island premiere.

“Whether you like Frank Sinatra or not,” she said, “you can’t argue with the music. It will be a very classy night.”

Turner said another goal is to establish a foundation next year, funded by donations from businesses and individuals, that would provide a financial cushion in case of emergencies.

But the main goal, she said, was to be around for another year, and that she can guarantee.

Theatre By The Sea has survived 75 years, and for the next 75, “we’re taking it one year at a time,” said Turner.

“And right now everything looks good.”

cgray@projo.com