The Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced a campaign Tuesday to raise $2.5 million to “save” the season set to begin later this month and said it was suspending its planning for 2024 as it seeks to stabilize its finances.
The festival’s board of directors also said it had relieved artistic director Nataki Garrett of the executive director role she took on in January. The board will take on administrative duties directly.
Tuesday’s announcement comes just a week before previews of the first two shows of the season, “Rent” and “Romeo and Juliet,” are scheduled to start.
In its announcement, the festival asked its annual donors to move up their donations, underscoring a sense of urgency. It said it needed to raise $1.5 million by June for the 2023 season to continue.
And it said it was also canceling this year’s production of “It’s Christmas, Carol!” which was scheduled to run through December.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s financial problems could have big public relations and economic ramifications in southern Oregon, where it has been a major tourist draw. Of the 350,000 visitors who arrive in Ashland each year, more than a third had theater tickets, according to the city’s tourism bureau.
The plea comes amid a tumultuous period for the festival, which has contended with natural disasters, a global pandemic, leadership changes and a shifting theater audience.
The festival had just begun an 11-show season under a new artistic director, Nataki Garrett, when the pandemic struck in March 2020. It had already spent half its $44 million budget preparing the stage production when it was forced to shut down. More than 800 performances were canceled, and it temporarily laid off 500 people. Seven months later, wildfire roared into the Rogue Valley, burning 2,500 homes and hundreds of businesses.
Facing a dire financial outlook, the company decided to shrink its 2023 season.
“Attendance has not been what it was, pre-pandemic,” David Schmitz, then executive director of the festival, told The Oregonian/OregonLive. At that point, in September 2022, he said, attendance for the season was 46% less than it was in 2019.
Schmitz was named executive director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2020. He left the festival earlier this year as one of a wave of departures that also included director of development Amanda Brandes. The festival said it had laid off 12 employees, furloughed seven and left 18 indefinitely vacant.
That left Garrett as interim executive artistic director and Anyania Muse — who was the festival’s manager for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility as well as its human resources manager — became its interim chief operating officer as well.
Garrett, who joined the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as its artistic director in 2019, has been the subject of backlash and sometimes serious harassment since she became the first Black woman to take on that role.
Critics disagreed with her choice of productions, which continued the festival’s move toward more contemporary plays exploring social justice issues, and a greater focus on diverse casting. Garrett told The Oregonian/OregonLive last year that her goal was to create a successful, self-sustaining company, in part by building a more diverse audience.
“My primary purpose here at OSF is to create a thriving enterprise,” Garrett said at the time, “so that in the future, when another group of people – 25, 30 years, 50 years, a hundred years out – comes to OSF, that it’s sustaining, that they use whatever platform we create so that they can have a future.”
Festival officials hope an arts aid package now pending in the Oregon Legislature could provide a much-needed shot in the arm.
House Bill 2459 would send some $51 million to arts organizations all over the state. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival would receive $5.1 million, the single largest slice.
The bill was approved by the House Economic Development and Small Business Committee and is being considered by the Joint Ways and Means Committee.
“With money so tight, $50 million is a big lift,” said Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland. “But we’re hopeful.”
Charlotte Lin, a member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival board, echoed the sentiments of many others when she described in her legislative testimony how difficult the one-two punch of the pandemic and wildfires has been on the organization.
The resulting financial duress, she wrote, has revealed longer-term weaknesses. “It turns out OSF had operated with a structural deficit for years,” Lin wrote. “Expenses had increased but revenue did not increase.”
The festival curtailed its repertory productions last fall, which exacerbated the revenue shortfall, and executives turned their focus to fundraising. Garrett helped bring in $19 million in state and federal emergency funds.
The festival hoped to improve its short-term situation by “leveraging” its endowment fund. But that strategy has been complicated by the stock market decline, wrote Octavia Solis, another member of the festival board, in testimony to lawmakers.
“Our Endowment Fund has made incredible sacrifices and contributions to ensure that the 2023 season continues as planned,” Solis wrote. “But the Stock Market has taken a huge bite out of the market value of our Endowment.”
The festival also launched a long-term fundraising campaign. A Bay Area family foundation stepped in with a $2 million donation. Lin said she and her husband have pledged another $1 million.
For decades, a third of Ashland visitors came for the theater, fueling the region’s restaurants, inns and shops, according to Travel Ashland, the visitors and convention bureau of the Ashland Chamber of Commerce.
In 2022, Travel Ashland broadened its campaigns to lure travelers with little interest in theater, portraying the city as a place for a getaway with friends and family in a walkable city surrounded by nature.
On Monday, before the news hit, people dependent on tourism were optimistic about 2023. Andy Card, who owns the downtown Oberon’s Restaurant & Bar, its name inspired by “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” said there’s a lot to draw people to the area.
“For every reduction in OSF tourism, you’re seeing an increase in people here for different reasons,” he said. “The location, natural beauty, restaurants, wineries, a notable city park and outdoor activities. This is an entrepreneurial town.”
— The Oregonian
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