Verbal, social media and financial support from the community, especially the area's artistic community, has surged in the wake of Tuesday's announcement by the Arkansas Repertory Theatre that it was immediately suspending operations.
That involves canceling the final production of its 2017-18 season and halting plans for 2018-19. The Rep's board also revealed that it would need between $750,000 and $1 million upfront just to clear the theater's operating debt and make it possible to consider any future for the 42-year-old theater.
But reports of the Rep's demise are premature, said Rep board Chairman Brian Bush.
"We haven't closed, we have just suspended our production schedule," he said. "We're still alive, still fighting."
Support has consisted of "everything from actual donations to emails and communications that people don't want the theater to go away," he said.
Some of those supporters are planning a "Rally for the Rep" at 5 p.m. Tuesday in front of the theater at Sixth and Main streets in downtown Little Rock. The street party will feature legendary local musical group the Greasy Greens, plus remarks by Rep founder Cliff Baker and "special guests and friends" of the theater that include local and out-of-town actors who have performed there.
"We're still piecing together" the details, volunteer organizer Anna-Lee Pittman said, but the rally will close the 600 block of Main Street, which has been closed off and on for construction for several months anyway, and Loblolly Creamery will provide free ice cream.
"We'll be pushing people to support the Rep -- to become members, make donations, join auxiliaries, provide corporate sponsorships," Pittman said.
"In order to continue operations, the Rep must raise $5 million," organizer Skip Rutherford, dean of the Clinton School of Public Service, said in a news release about the rally. "But in the immediate, there are vendor bills that need to be paid and a three-story facility to maintain. For people like me who love the Rep and who recognize its cultural significance for this city, now is the time to step up and make a contribution."
Organizers also are publicizing their message through social media.
"We have not had any major gifts; they've come from people in the community, staff members, board members, the people that love the theater," Bush said. "A lot of these people are first-time donors.
"What we really need, and what we're looking for, is that big lead gift, the six-figure or seven-figure variety, because once we can get the campaign off the ground and people realize it's achievable, you'll see the money flow in."
The outpouring of support has been "heartwarming," Bush said.
"Lots of actors who have performed here, directors and choreographers who have worked here, producers from other theaters from around the country, some of [whom] have turned around other theaters, have been calling and asking what [they] can do to help, asking if they can come here and speak on our behalf and help us with the turnaround," he said.
Neighboring restaurant Three Fold Dumpling & Noodle Co. provided assistance for Saturday night's Art Works benefit; it has made a donation to the theater; and it has pledged to offer free meals with ticket purchases for subsequent events. The Rep will honor its obligation to host two "Ballet Arkansas in Concert" May 4-6 and will hold its nearly sold-out "Education at the Rep" summer program, for which about 10 staff members will stay on.
Most of the staff, including the producing artistic director, John Miller-Stephany, will step down May 8.
Miller-Stephany's predecessor, Bob Hupp, who joined the Rep in 2000 and left in 2016 to become artistic director at Theatre Syracuse in Syracuse, N.Y., said the current situation is "disheartening" but "it doesn't mean the end of the Rep."
"If the community can come together, and that's an important if, then a reimagined Rep is certainly possible," he said. "There are viable examples from across the country where theaters have faced crisis and emerged stronger and even more acutely tuned to the needs of the community. I feel confident that the Rep can do this."
SEATING, DONATIONS PLUMMET
The Rep's 2017 Form 990, which nonprofits file with the Internal Revenue Service, showed that for 2016, the Rep suffered a sudden steep loss of $1.33 million in contributions and grants, down from $2,281,880 from the previous year, to $944,121, and a loss of total revenue from $4,676,097 to $3,467,517.
Bush said in Tuesday's news release that a decline in ticket sales for several years, an inability to reach goals for charitable giving and a change in Little Rock's theater landscape created "a perfect financial storm" for the Rep.
Since the 2010-11 season, the first since Rep renovations established a seating capacity of 377, the theater had been filling roughly at least 75 percent of those seats. The peak year was 2014-15, the year the season lineup included successful productions of the musicals Elf and Mary Poppins and the Tony Award-winning musical Memphis (the Rep was one of the first regional theaters to produce it). Total paid seating for that season was 51,424, 87.4 percent of the available seats.
Attendance slipped to 79.6 percent for 2015-16 (the big hit that season was The Little Mermaid in December) and 74.1 percent for 2016-17; the five shows the Rep staged in 2017-18, however, drew only 24,676 patrons, or only 47.4 percent of capacity.
Only one 2017-18 production made its budget numbers, Bush said, "and that was our black-box production of Santaland Diaries," a one-man show that ran in conjunction with the small-scale, world-premiere musical The Gift of the Magi on the Rep's main stage.
"We missed budget on every other production, including Mamma Mia!," he said.
"The feedback on Mamma Mia! was very positive; we just didn't sell enough tickets," he added. As a result, the board voted to pull back on original plans to extend the run for a week. "We hadn't sold enough tickets, and it might have dug the hole deeper."
Bush acknowledged a possible link to the change in artistic leadership, but that wouldn't be the whole picture. Miller-Stephany replaced Hupp in the summer of 2016, just before the 2016-17 season began.
"The other part of the puzzle is, the very first season that John Miller-Stephany presided over, 2016-17, Bob Hupp had programmed that season and hired the directors," he said. "John came on board, and all he had to do that first year was learn the organization, become acquainted with the community.
"Meanwhile, we had massive losses for the '16-17 season, Spamalot did not make goal; Sister Act did, Godspell did not. We saw that we were setting ourselves up for a potential financial disaster, so we had to tweak programming, plan for smaller-cast shows that were not as expensive to produce, and unfortunately those didn't sell either. We had two seasons back to back with significant deficits.
"If we can't sell Spamalot, which I thought would be a slam dunk -- we all did; if we can't sell Mamma Mia!, we need to think about who is our audience, what do they want, what they will come see."
POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS
Bush said all options are on the table for a "re-visioned" Rep, including seasons with fewer shows, that have shorter runs, and possible collaborations with other theaters in the region. "Virtually every aspect of the theater is up for examination and discussion."
A committee of current and former board members, with Ruth Shepherd, who takes over as board chairman July 1, at its head, is working to come up with a plan for the theater's future by early August to present to patrons, donors and lenders.
Shepherd has said one of the goals is to maintain the Rep as a professional theater -- "It has to be professional, has to be affordable for folks in the community, and it has to be sustainable," she said -- but options include a revision of the theater's status as a member of the League of Resident Theatres, which requires the hiring of a significant percentage of casts and stage management who are members of Actors Equity. Bush and Shepherd envisioned the possibility of hiring more local actors.
"We have a lot of excellent local talent, actors who have found their way to Little Rock for various reasons, and those people can provide an excellent performance on our stage," Bush said, and who are members of either Equity or the Screen Actors Guild -- which makes them Equity-eligible -- or both.
"Up for consideration: do we consider staying as a LORT [League of Resident Theatres] theater? It's beneficial in a lot of ways; our LORT designation is not terribly important to our audience. Its value is more outside of Little Rock; it's prestigious to be a LORT theater, a lot of actors and directors want to work only for LORT theaters."
Options include collaboration with the state's other Equity theaters, Fayetteville's TheatreSquared and the University of Central Arkansas-affiliated Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre in Conway, "something we'd be very open to," Bush said.
He said the theater will sustain the current staff of 10 through the summer education component. After Aug. 1, everything will be in question.
The $1 million figure Bush has been throwing around is what it will take "to satisfy our creditors, pay our existing staff, continue to fundraise as we move into the fall, and meet our fundraising goals." Ultimately, the Rep has been in the midst of a $5.3 million campaign, of which it had raised $1.7 million.
"The goal is to really pay off all debt, to take care of deferred maintenance on our buildings [the theater at Sixth and Main, a State Street scene shop and two apartment buildings] and build truly working capital for the theater," he said. "It has never been adequately capitalized."
Architectural and design elements that were "temporarily delayed" by lack of funding when the Rep opened in its current location in 1988 have never materialized.
"A lot of the time, it's been cash in one door and out another, and that doesn't allow your artistic side much room to try anything adventurous because you're working on such a thin margin," Bush said. "There's been no shortage of things we would love to do."
SundayMonday on 04/29/2018