Reduced government funding, declining ticket sales and pandemic closures contribute to challenges facing theaters.
For 57 years at Long Wharf Theatre some of the finest productions of American theater were produced, presented and premiered, many with stars and others with artists who became stars, with playwrights who earned Pulitzer Prizes and Tony Awards. It was a place that at its peak, attracted 18,000 subscribers and thousands more annually.
Today the theater company is without a stage of its own, housed in a downtown administrative building, as its smaller staff begins its new itinerant life as it faces a dramatically different and uncertain future.
This is a story I never wanted to write.
It’s about the crisis in American theater and particularly the state of the not-for-profit theaters in Connecticut. Far more than previous economic dramas, this period is the most critical time for theaters since I started covering the scene in the 1970s.
Nationally, many theaters are barely hanging on after reopening in the fall of 2021, following an 18-month shut-down. Many face dramatic losses of audiences and personnel, declining contributed income, nose-diving subscription numbers and soaring expenses. Theaters have cut staffs, shortened and downsized seasons, even closed. Some have rebounded or have begun a slow turnaround but the “existential threat” as many theater leaders have called it, remains in 2024.
“Without any question, this is the worst crisis to hit the non-profit movement in its entire history,” says Tony Kushner, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright of “Angels in America.” Kushner recently spoke at the Westport Country Playhouse. “I think for anybody who cares about theater they should be frightened because American theater cannot survive without the not-for-profit movement.”
To read the full article posted on CT Insider, click here.
By Frank Rizzo
Posted July 21, 2024