Friday, September 17, 1999
Theatre Classics in financial trouble
BY JACKIE DEMALINE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Today will decide the future of Downtown Theatre Classics. Its executive board is hoping to land $30,000 in funding by the end of the day. What happens will decide whether it will complete its third season.
Founder Chuck Wente acknowledges there won't be a production in the October slot. The announcement that Amadeus had been canceled came almost two weeks ago. He says subscribers' ticket money, which is held in escrow, will be refunded.
Mr. Wente also acknowledges that artistic director Jerry Lowe, who came on board midway through last season, has submitted a letter of resignation. “I think we can induce him back if we get funding,” Mr. Wente says. Mr. Lowe could not be reached for comment.
The theater lost 20 percent of its subscribers this season when it veered from an all-musical schedule. The two musicals that started the season didn't set fire at the box office. 1776 broke even; Nunsense, which management expected to be profitable,lost more than $20,000.
The planned holiday revival of the company's original musical adaptation of It's A Wonderful Life has a $90,000 budget, and advance ticket sales have been slow.
“It's crisis time,” says Mr. Wente.
“We're having trouble in terms of cash flow in getting It's A Wonderful Life up,” he says. “I think we can do real well, but we have to have that $90,000 budget up front.”
The theater burst onto the scene three years ago with a budget of almost $500,000, very high for a local start-up company. (Cincinnati Shakespeare is just reaching that number after five years; most of the companies that have started in the last few years have had $50,000 or less.)
The theater's board spent Thursday afternoon waiting for the outcome of a Fine Arts Fund panel review. (The results of the meeting come after this section's deadline.) Half of $30,000 they are hoping for is a $15,000 operating grant from the fund.
If the money isn't found to mount It's a Wonderful Life, “I think we're out of business,” says Mr. Wente.
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