Theater of the Stars subscribers still waiting, wondering about refunds

A retired social services and a federal government manager, he made several calls and wrote two letters to TOTS requesting a refund, so far with no response.

“I feel ripped off,” the Atlantan said. “What else is there to say? I’m not hearing anything.”

TOTS first included instructions for requesting refunds when it cancelled the debut show of its 2013-14 season in late June, and repeated them as recently as early September when it announced it was ceasing operations due to the recession and other factors.

But subscribers say their efforts to extract refunds have been in vain and complain that TOTS has been uncommunicative. The theater declined this week to clarify how many subscribers are due refunds or to reveal the dollar amount taken in for subscriptions.

Unlike several subscribers interviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jeannine Rhoden reached the theater by phone, and was promised three different times that the $500 she paid for two subscriptions would be returned.

“They said, ‘We’ll refund your money,’” recalled Rhoden, 36, who works in public relations and marketing for a nonprofit financial services lobbying firm.

Then?

“Nothing. I don’t think we’ll ever see that money again.”

But a TOTS leader said it’s too soon to determine what actions will be taken.

“We are still working on the many complex things involved with both determining the final liability to our subscribers and winding down the organization,” board chairman Mark B. Kent said in an email to the AJC this week. “We are not withholding any information or being evasive. We simply do not have an answer and probably will not have an answer for a few more weeks.”

When TOTS announced it was ceasing operations in September, Brian D. Frey, the theater’s vice president and general manager, acknowledged that no refunds have been tendered to subscribers, only to single-ticket purchasers. He said the remaining three employees had been logging requests on spreadsheets “in order to make informed and responsible decisions.”

Frey, who served as the theater's spokesperson during an aborted $1 million emergency fund-raising campaign and as TOTS' six shows were cancelled over several weeks, added last week that "because our systems were antiquated we have a long road ahead of us still."

Kent, who has now assumed the spokesperson’s role, declined to say if TOTS planned to file for bankruptcy or if subscribers are in the same line as all other TOTS creditors.

“The subscribers are a very high priority with TOTS, but currently the amount that may be available for distribution to them depends on what assets are liquidated to determine the amounts of any refunds,” he said. “We are working as hard as we possibly can to get a clear picture of the situation. We are grateful to everyone for their patience as we work through things.”

Several factors contributed to TOTS’ demise, Frey and Christopher Manos, TOTS’ producer for more than five decades, acknowledged. The recession made operating funds hard to raise and debt easy to accrue, even after an anonymous donor gave the troupe $3 million to clear accumulated red ink in 2011. Formidable competitor Broadway in Atlanta secured the hottest musicals from the Great White Way. And though TOTS was a non-profit, it did not aggressively pursue government and foundation grants even as ticket sales declined.

East Cobb resident John Ciak, who attends Broadway in Atlanta and Alliance Theatre productions, said he was sorry to see TOTS go but even sorrier for himself at the prospect of being out nearly $700 for two subscriptions.

Said the retired IBM employee, 68, who now drives a school bus: “This is a bad experience.”