20 or so local theatre employees have two more weeks of employment this morning, or a severance check, as the Intiman Theatre announced over the weekend that it would shutter for the rest of the season, in an attempt to regroup and reopen for 2012.
Consultant Susan Trapnell told Brendan Kiley: “When you don’t have enough cash, you can’t do anything well. And that takes a toll on good people.”
The Intiman had just announced raising $450,000 from the first phase of an Impact Intiman campaign, and told media they would remain open…but of course a non-profit theatre typically needs to fundraise for its current and next year’s operation budgets during the season. As Intiman had been struggling for a decade just to do that–without the burden of raising an extra million dollars–the odds always favored at least a temporary closure when faced with finding $2.75 million.
Those odds rose considerably when Trapnell came aboard, and interim managing director Melaine Bennett left. Bennett had previously been development director, before receiving her battlefield commission, so any remaining ability Intiman had to find big gifts quickly took a hit with her departure.
Trapnell is known as an arts turnaround expert of sorts, and she’s told a board of directors before that trying to bail and paddle at the same time means neither is done well. (See this story about her leadership through ACT Theatre’s financial crisis several years ago, which also required ACT taking a few months breather from producing works.)
Her influence on Intiman’s board is critical, because they seem to have little sense of how thousands of subscribers and donors will react to being told the theatre will remain open one week, only to be told it will close the next. And even that announcement fails to fill in substantial blanks:
We are still working through details of how this impacts our constituents and will have more information available in the next week. All ticket holders will receive information in the coming days.
ACT’s Carlo Scandiuzzi has already announced that ACT will “welcome” Intiman subscribers, though those details are being worked out still as well. Trapnell indicated to the Seattle Times that the theatre may also offer subscribers the opportunity to call their subscription a donation, or use it as credit against a 2012 subscription.
Trapnell also said, “Every part of the theater is complicit in some ways” in Intiman’s financial predicament. That would certainly include the board, whose assertions since the sudden departure of managing director Brian Colburn last fall have had a singularly damaging effect on the theatre’s credibility.
Do you remember reading this in the Times last November? “Intiman leaders say ‘corrective measures’ are being taken, that the theater is not in danger of closing and that this season and the next are proceeding as planned.” Perhaps that should have been qualified as a “forward-looking statement.”
At the time, the Intiman admitted to drawing $300,000 from its endowment that year. Now, the Times reports that over the past two years, Intiman raided their endowment of $2.6 million, leaving $1 million as of last fall (which is now gone, spent on paying off a line of credit).
It’s important to remember that when Intiman blames its troubles on management missteps and a lack of oversight that Intiman’s endowment is administered by a separate foundation. It would have been impossible for former managing director Colburn to access the endowment’s funds without the knowledge of the board. Which is to say that despite all the protestations about uncovering a crisis, Intiman’s board must have been aware of the organization’s desperate need for funds the past two years. It may have been worse than they thought–bills still going unpaid–but when you are allocating restricted funds to keep operating, that’s already a crisis.
If Intiman’s board failed to recognize that–their primary responsibility as a board–then it may be time, as they did with Brian Colburn, to wish them well in their future endeavors.
Ahhhhh….MvB, I’d like to open a discussion about non-profit boards and arts boards in particular. I’m not an expert on board recruitment and selection. What I do know (or think I know) is that members of boards are volunteers who believe in whatever the “cause” is, and at this level of board participation, I’d expect that for Intiman these are wealthier members of the community, because they very likely have a requirement of membership that they donate from their pockets a certain dollar amount, and/or they find that equivalent each year from others.
There may be other requirements of membership like participating in x number of fundraisers per year with volunteer energy. And attending x number (minimum) of board meetings a year. There might only be four full board meetings a year, while the officers might meet monthly.
While board recruiters might also look for desirable qualities such as business acumen or expertise in certain areas, for the vast majority of board members, the best quality (this is my assumption) is enthusiasm and support for the mission, along with money.
However, when they do take on this mission of love (I have to presume that a big chunk of it is love), that doesn’t instantly convey upon them a knowledge of how to do “due diligence” on managing financial necessities.
In an ideal world, where board membership recruitment is well-oiled, new board members come on and beginning learn these important skills over time while more experienced board members are actually doing that oversight, and then as longer-term members leave, the newer ones have gained the necessary knowledge for this complex task.
When there is a large executive staff, and a larger organization, the board becomes dependent on the staff to tell them what they need to know, often because the numbers are large, the activities are complex and the “how to understand” is more spoon-fed to them, and usually from a point-of-view. Executives who fear giving boards bad news may subsume difficulties, either to keep their jobs or to keep the board happy or because they feel that there is a solution in the offing or… many other “ors”…
If the board members are told that these numbers mean things are not so bad, and that in the next month(s) these rosier things are going to happen, then it would be foolish not to wait and trust a little more, right? And it could be true, and sometimes is true, I imagine, and things aren’t so bad and the rosy thing does happen. And sometimes it doesn’t.
We have been seeing “the arts” taking huge hits during this recession. Rosier expectations of grants and donations are drying up. Government arts money, usually leveraged by people thinking “Oh, if the State of Washington (or King County) gives them money, then I can/should too,” is becoming unavailable.
So, you’re a volunteer on a board of a theater that you love, and for months (or years), you’re hearing bad news from the executives in charge. And maybe you’re giving money, and you gave more money last year than the year before and maybe worked harder on fundraising, and you’re still hearing bad news. Maybe you get discouraged and quit. You’re a volunteer, and maybe you’d like to join somewhere where the fiscal news is more upbeat, so you can feel like it’s more fun to volunteer there.
Board attrition might accelerate and it might include some of your most well-educated (in board terms, financial management oversight terms) board members who get discouraged or bored or well, they leave. The Empty Space Theater struggled for years and “only” had about $75,000 in debt when they closed (again, as I understood the facts, this isn’t a statement of absolute knowledge), but my impression is that they had a less wealthy board than they used to, and also a NEWER board with less experience dealing with fiscal problems, and they got scared (my word, not anyone else’s).
Blaming is easy and free. I don’t know anything at ALL about the Intiman board, it’s history, the lengths of service or the expertise of the board, past or present. I just know what I read or hear. I’m not interested in exempting them from their share of responsibility. I have been on the inside of one of the The Empty Space’s “emergency Save Us” campaigns from the mid-90s as business manager, and saw many of these things at work, with board members who left, board members who stepped up, board members who didn’t have a clue, and a mind-blowingly meticulous managing director, Melissa Hines, at the helm, who did everything she could (and that was conSIDERable) to make everything work out. At that point, she and they succeeded.
From that personal perspective, I know that it’s really tough for everyone. Susan Trapnell’s publicized perspective that there was no specific malfeasance, even with the abrupt (shady-appearing) departure of Brian Colburn, translates to me that people have been working hard, with all their foibles and human frailties, on dealing with a long-term complex financial formula, and have been losing that battle.
It’s tiresome, to me, when people outside situations judge and condemn in simple black and white terms. As a single parent who struggled mightily against enormous forces (both internal and external) to be as good a parent as I could be, I see how easy it is to read a news story about a kid gone bad and have people ask “where was the mother?” or some such. Maybe a parent failed in some way, sure. But maybe the parent tried every day to do the best she or he could. In my case, I just have to thank God that my sons are men I can be so very proud of, and not necessarily because I did all the right things!
I’d just like to recognize that with an intractable, long term problem like Intiman’s, there were likely many people over the last number of years who worked every day, the best they could, to try to make things better, or keep things from getting worse. And the model of volunteer boards, recruited for deep pockets and enthusiasm, does not instantly help them know how to best manage very complex finances.
MvB, I’m not even quibbling with you that the board should take responsibility. I just want to open the discussion wider than “good riddance to them.”
Miryam–
Overall, I still think the media coverage has been too slanted in the Intiman’s favor, including Michael’s. It’s a non profit business that’s utterly failed to run itself well; it’s lied, misinformed, and taken advantage of the public. Simply saying board members are probably just well-intentioned people is no excuse whatsoever. Again, 20 hard-working people just lost their jobs anyway, despite leaning on the community to help support the institution in a moment of need. The comparison to single-motherhood is totally out there–if a single mother has her house foreclosed, I’m generally pissed because of all the structural challenges facing her. When a theater burns through $3 million, lies about it, and for all that can’t find a single competent bookkeeper on either its board or to hire, my sympathy is, er, somewhat limited. Half a million dollars has been leached from the local funding landscape at a difficult time by a manipulative, bloated beast that’s thrown everyone it can under the bus in an effort to save itself. So the Intiman lives (insofar as a theater that doesn’t produce plays can still be called a theater), having screwed its own employees, lied, misled, played the victim, begged and swindled money out of the community, and finally screwed over the last group of suckers it could: the people it conned into buying tickets.
And who’s trying to bail them out now? ACT. The theater that people should have been supporting in the first place, based on a high quality of work, substantial community engagement, and on, and on, and on…
—JMB
Dead on, JMB (come back home, please!)
My impression after getting close to (but on part of) several non profit boards is that they’re a bunch of well intentioned do-gooders. Nothing wrong with that. However, you need to couple it with some hard-headed business sense, people who understand biz and tech best practices, and who don’t treat the arts as some kind of sacred, special island.
Might be nice if it were, but in this day and age it just isn’t the case. ACT’s done a fine job getting it together and offering an interesting set of packages for subscribers. Overheard at the subscription table at the Rep last night – “I really don’t want to sign up for the whole season, but I’d like more than 5 plays” (Sounds like someone pretty darn interested in theater who hates 2 of the upcoming season’s choices). “Well, sir, you could buy a 5 play package and pay full price for the 6th play”.
Sheer genius, that move. Why not make a 5+ package, with a per-play price? I think I know – they’d get immediate feedback about what productions are pure losers on the face of it. Nth time around for Lughnasa? Don’t want to pay for that. That horrible Sylvia? Didn’t want to pay for that once. (Not to be confused with Sylvia, The Goat, which I’d gladly pay to see again).
My premise has always been to buy a season package and get a welcome surprise from an unknown play. Too often lately the case is that while I may get a welcome surprise from an unknown, more often I’m disappointed by a rehashed Known.
Jeremy, the comparison to parenting was meant to emphasize public comments we see all the time about what we read in the news and opinions that assign blame to complex situations. Bad parenting is almost always alluded to when kids get into criminal trouble…
I do think there are structural challenges to theaters and theater boards and a societal lack of support that can be equated in some ways to foreclosure scandals.
I was sharing my experience of being on the inside of a theater where outside people were extremely tired of the theater having multiple “save me!” campaigns.
I can also comment from having done accounting that you can track each penny properly but from the line items on a financial report, the story can be told or interpreted in multiple ways, depending on who is doing the “telling” and not from a nefarious or even self-serving way. Optimistic people might choose to talk about how it’s so much better than last year, or how well grant receipts are doing, right-this-minute, so more grants are sure to fall into place.
I love ACT. I think they are hands down doing the most creative and interesting work and the most creative and interesting fiscal partnerships with performers AND patrons (the ACTPass is one crazy great idea). I think the Rep is beginning to act on what looks like that success by finding similar efforts to undertake.
Labeling what a board has done as lying – you can do it, you’re doing it. If Intiman DOES have any chance of succeeding in a 2012 season (and I for one am not sure how to wrap my head around how they will do that, and part of how they MUST do it is convincing people to become subscribers for 2012 after burning them for 2011 – which makes that trick enormously difficult), then of course, they must also try to put their best foot forward in public.
I just asked to talk about thinking of yourself as a volunteer with time and money to spend on things you care about, and what you might do in a situation like this one, and how much easier it is to bolt to something easier to give time and money to, that also feels good and worthy, and there’s no one who could stop you from quitting. So, those who do stay to slog through the mess, and clearly some are staying and slogging, are probably not doing so just to pull the wool over the public’s eyes and gleefully slapping each other in high fives.
And maybe some of that exact foot-dragging is due to the 20 employees that have been counting on the theater, and all the designers and directors and actors that won’t get paid for these shows. It must feel like a terrible thing for them to pull FOUR shows off the schedule. Saying “You’re fired” to all those people is not something they would want to be responsible for saying.
Ok. I’m made my pitch for a more nuanced approach to the disappointment. People who are mad are not going to nuance. I get that. I have not been a fan of many of Intiman’s plays, AND have felt that the theater culture seemed “stuck up” since getting their fancy Tony, like their shit didn’t stink as much as everyone else’s. Even so, it’s complicated.
Hi Miryam,
First, let me say I’m not interested in blaming anyone; I’m interested in the accountability of the board as an entity (not this or that particular person because I wasn’t in the room). But my personal interest is exactly in the real-world issues you bring up, because the arts community can’t sustain this kind of institutional stress and attrition. If the expected level of board oversight is not enough to keep organizations from running themselves out of existence, then something needs to change. I would argue that the Intiman in not a special case, and that it’s time to realize that.
In a different sense, anyone on the Intiman board accepted real legal responsibility, specifically in the area of debts incurred by the organization. Anyone on the Intiman endowment foundation board accepted legal responsibility for the oversight of these restricted funds. It appears that both boards failed *repeatedly* to exercise restraint.
The key difference between the Intiman, the Empty Space, and single motherhood, is that the Intiman had an endowment. An endowment only exists on the trust that a board will not allow what the Intiman board apparently allowed, its use as a stealth overdraft account.
If you do need this last-ditch, immediate cash draw, you owe it to your donors to inform them in great detail why it happened and how you plan to pay it back. You certainly don’t make repeated returns to the endowment over the course of two years while pretending in public to subscribers and donors that all is well. It may not be illegal, but it matches no one’s definition of oversight or good faith. And you damage the ability of every other arts organization in town to raise funds for its endowment.
Honestly, when I look at the situation, the analogy that springs to mind is not single motherhood, but an addict trying to keep a habit under wraps.
MvB, point taken. And agreed to.
This is both tragic and infuriating.
Intiman was always an over-bloated theater w/a grandiose sense of itself and its “talent” that was so Seattle like in its disproportion to the truth: it was mediocrity at best — plain and simple — even w/the great Bart on board — I’ve seen better college productions. But the worshiping of medicore idols is a national past-time.
Intiman like so many arts organizations has always robbed Peter to pay Paul, for many years. Great mistake: Why did they hire a completely inexperienced Artistic Director to follow Bart? Hint: Bart himself selected this well-meaning dullard of a novice, with no following or experience to speak of or raise money around, and so why, you might ask, would he do that? It didn’t serve the theater, and perhaps that’s the point, you don’t want your legacy tarnished by someone who is capable and exciting and does a great job — far better the theater fail because you left — after all, who could take the Great One’s place? No-one was his answer and the board was too stupid to question hiring a lackluster, inexperienced so-called director.
As for the Board members the ones I know are incompetent and unfamiliar with theater and serve on the board as a social status for their own sorry lives, rubbing shoulders with god knows who. It’s a big board, and they’ve hired local bigwig financial consultants to come in and “save” the theater for a number of years — I can think of one a few years back; she was paid more than $250 an hour and pulled down a salary twice that of Bart and his Managing Directress. Money was thrown out the window, and yes, some came back, which was used to pay the illustrious fundraising consultant’s overblown salary, and used to raise more money to pay her salary, and a few other poor fools working minimum wage, and well, you get the picture.
The theatre was on shifting sands as of 4-5 years ago, and the work was drek. The staff and board were dysfunctional all along; the theater/management lied for years not only about its financial dealings and how they misallocated the funding money that came in, they community/Seattle was complict in the lie that Intiman was doing good theater. It was, for the most part, crap. And now the doors are closed the lies can take a breather.