Even the great Bard of Avon needs a bailout.
Georgia Shakespeare on Friday launched a public "Save the Theatre" campaign. If the company can't raise $150,000 in two weeks, it will close the doors and cease operations.
Just hours after a letter from acting artistic director Richard Garner was posted online explaining the company's short-term fundraising goals, donors from around the country had pledged $11,000.
The first $150,000 raised will go toward completing the 2011 season, specifically bringing Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" to audiences as promised on Oct. 6. A second phase of fund raising requires $350,000 by the end of the year to meet other financial obligations.
"We have held out as long as we could and tried to work quietly behind the scenes," Garner said. "When you have no other option, you reach out to your friends. We know we only get one chance in a lifetime to make this kind of plea."
Like other artistic companies such as Actor's Express Theatre, which made a similar plea for $200,000 in February, Georgia Shakespeare found itself caught in the downward spiral of the economy. Just a few years ago, the company was preparing to kick off a major campaign to address capital improvements and had begun exploring endowments, Garner said. But economic troubles made it the wrong time for a major campaign.
"We cut our budgets and did all the belt tightening we could do and we were able to squeak by," Garner said. The 26-year-old company, which has average yearly operating costs of $1.5 million, was even able to operate in the black for the past two years as a result of extraordinary gifts from donors.
This year has proved more challenging. Subscriptions sales were up for the 2011 season, but single ticket sales for two shows were down. A fundraising gala fell $30,000 below goal. The theater was carrying $350,000 in debt, and corporate support declined 60 percent. It was all too much for the company to withstand.
"It's not that all of a sudden things just got drastic. It's just that going to the public is the last ditch effort," said Ashley Preisinger, incoming co-chair along with Paul Pendergrass.
Preisinger and Pendergrass have begun drafting a new business model for the company that includes hiring a managing director, a position they haven't had in the five years since it was eliminated as a cost cutting measure; diversifying the donor base to include more sources of funding; building strategic partnerships with other organizations that may allow them to share certain services; and creating a touring program.
Preisinger is confident that if the company can raise $150,000 from the community, the corporate community will help with the additional $350,000. One private donor has already agreed to pay 10 percent of the $150,000 once the community has shown momentum.
"Regardless of our financials, the quality of our productions have never been compromised," Preisinger said. "If the community comes in and supports us, then the corporations will come in with support as well."
To make a donation visit www.gashakespeare.org.
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