Is it alive? Part 2: The nonprofit side of creatively surviving the economy

The Guthrie Theater and Florida Stage differ in size, geographic location and audience demographics. But they’re identical in their determination to get creative about cost efficiency while keeping up the quality of their work.

Though ticket sales remain on target for both so far this season, neither is taking anything for granted. At Florida Stage, a small professional nonprofit theater launched 22 years ago in South Florida’s Palm Beach County, founder and producing director Louis Tyrrell has cut a few positions and decided not to fill others, even though his critically acclaimed company enjoyed robust attendance at its two fall shows and is 60 percent subscribed for the season.                                                               

He knows the margin of survival for a theater is narrow in the best of times – maybe only one failed production – and that in today’s economy, even the healthy need to be prudent. So yesterday’s tactics alone won’t do.

  Tyrrell

“It goes a step beyond that for us and our industry,” Tyrrell said. “You have got to think out of the box.” 

Along with trimming staff positions, Florida Stage has begun telemarketing for the first time.

“We’re being very aggressive in our fund-raising … and using the Internet a heck of a lot more,” said Tyrrell, who has taken on the additional task of development since the company downsized its annual budget from $4.1 million to $3.4 million.   

The company does more TV ads, cuts better deals and “so far, it’s worked fine. But it’s really only an interim step,” he noted.

His company has been in the same space for 18 years and the rent keeps going up. “That’s when you have to start circling the wagons and looking for ways to collaborate. Those are the kinds of innovations the survivors are going to have to make if they expect to be here next year.”

While Tyrrell is getting busy talking with other producing and presenting groups in the Palm Beach area, the famed Minneapolis-based Guthrie - a major, 46-year-old, nonprofit regional theater that is one of North America’s finest -has already teamed with The Acting Company on an upcoming Guthrie run, and national tour, of Shakespeare’s “Henry V.” Their first-ever collaboration blends artistic and educational aims: The New-York-based Acting Company serves as professional training company for students and young professionals actors, while the Guthrie shares a bachelor of fine arts program with the University of Minnesota. Young performers from both companies will fill the “Henry V” cast.

Trish Santini, the Guthrie’s external relations director, said that teaming up for a production and tour was just one of the methods the theater is trying in order to live within a smaller budget. With revenue on track, the Guthrie still made budget cuts in November. It increased efficiency by such means as limiting the number of hours the theater store is open when no shows are running and it added consumer value by creating reduced-price ticket packages for concurrent productions – all what Santini calls “smart, incremental” changes that add up to impact. 

“Normally, we don’t bundle,” said Santini of their new marketing approach. “That’s a whole different creative look for a campaign.”

But even while they’re inventing new means of saving money and bringing in more, both the Guthrie and Florida Stage remain committed to producing top-quality work.

For Tyrrell, full houses are “really just a function of a 22-year relationship with a community” whose members have come to trust Florida Stage’s quality, he said - if a show get good buzz, 4,000-5,000 single-ticket buyers will turn up.  That’s why he went ahead with Florida Stage’s December-January show, “Mezzulah, 1946” a 10-character play by Michele Lowe whose size and cost were risky, but which is paying off artistically and financially.

 ”The play was so wonderful, and by the time we decided to change it, it would have sent the wrong message. It was worth it” to stage “Mezzulah,” Tyrrell said. But he acknowledged that, for next year, his company will be sticking to smaller, less expensive plays.       

There was a ruefulness to his tone that Santini echoed. “I think everything’s vulnerable right now” from size and number of productions to peripheral programs, she said. 

But whatever else the Guthrie may end up having to cut, it won’t compromise the theatrical excellence for which it’s famed.

“I think it comes down to a diligence about your mission,” Santini said. “And at the end of the day, it’s about protecting the  work on our stages.”

Poster design by Kevin Sprague

      Poster design by Kevin Sprague                                                                                          Poster