How would Shakespeare approach this one?
The American Shakespeare Center in Staunton needs to raise a quarter of a million dollars by Jan. 31 to cover operating expenses for the month of January. That’s the bad news. Here’s more bad news – the What Happens If The ASC Doesn’t End Up Covering Itself part of the story.
“Everything is on the table,” said Jim Warren, the artistic director at the American Shakespeare Center and the 20-year-old nonprofit’s cofounder, in an interview for today’s “Augusta Free Press Show.” “We’re in such need to hit that goal that without hitting that goal, things would have to change more dramatically than they are right now. We are attempting to restructure in every way we can to continue the programming that we’ve got. If we don’t hit this goal, then that programming will most likely have to change. And whether or not that means we’re not doing certain seasons at the Blackfriars, we’re cutting back on plays, going down from having one troupe on the road and one troupe at home, it might be just having one troupe altogether, our summer programs for kids might be in jeopardy,” Warren said.
“We’re trying everything we can to have the restructuring prevent those mass changes. But should we not reach that goal, then mass changes might have to happen,” Warren said.
The Shakespeare Center, housed at the Blackfriars Playhouse that opened in Downtown Staunton in 2001, is struggling for pretty much the same reason others in business and industry are struggling. In the case of the ASC, it’s a sort of double whammy, with government support in the form of Virginia Commission for the Arts grants slashed due to the budget shortfall being experienced in Richmond and school groups that book the center’s touring troupe cutting back on their dates due to their own funding crises. Warren said the center has not experienced a slump in its own ticket sales to date, and marketing director Erik Curren told me that the ASC actually exceeded its projections in December by 14 percent, but the early part of the year is expected to be slow.
“We are looking at some potential falls in revenue and anticipating trends that we’re seeing nationally and trying to be sure that we’re covering what our operating expenses are traditionally and also lowering those budgets so that we could get through this time period,” said Deirdre Sullivan, the development director at the Shakespeare Center.
The $250K campaign is just a first step toward an overall $650,000 fundraising effort that has a May 1 deadline, according to an e-mail that went out to ASC supporters Tuesday announcing what the center is calling its Survive and Thrive Campaign. Sullivan said the staff has been working behind the scenes for several months to address the center’s fiscal situation, and has made more than $250,000 in adjustments to its annual bottom line since September, including cutting several full-time positions.
“We are doing everything we can to try to minimize the economic impact,” Sullivan said. “We don’t want the perception to be, Help us, help us, throw money at us, because that’s not what we’re doing here. What we’re really doing is looking at every aspect of our business operations and seeing where we can reduce the expenses, how we can improve the revenue streams, and really looking at it to see what can we do better, and how can we position ourselves to get through this time period and be stronger at the other side,” Sullivan said.
How you can help
Click here for more information on the American Shakespeare Center’s Survive and Thrive Campaign.
- Story by Chris Graham
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