Tag Archives: susan trapnell

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Andrew Russell and the Intiman in October

A message from the Intiman (Photo: MvB)

“I’m a little dumbfounded,” I wrote Bruce Bradburn, Intiman’s board chair, “that there’s not been a full public accounting prior to what sounds like a praiseworthy attempt to reinvent the theatre artistically.”

I’d just read Misha Berson’s story in the Seattle Times, on Intiman’s plans to reopen with Andrew Russell at the helm (while wishing Berson had asked a business reporter to collaborate):

Russell’s goal for 2012 is to establish a loose collective of playwrights, directors, actors, designers and others to devise projects for Intiman to produce, in a short “micro-season” mounted next summer.

Russell came to Intiman in 2009, from New York, to take the position of Associate Producer; he also conceived and directed The Thin Place, a show that was more interesting, I think, to talk about later than to sit through. More recently he staged the Seattle Men’s Chorus production of Jake Heggie‘s For a Look or a Touch, a work originally commissioned by Seattle’s Music of Remembrance.

Still, nothing in the announcement of Russell as consulting artistic director cast new light on how Intiman planned to reinvent itself as a company that wouldn’t financially crash and burn in spectacularly public fashion. Last fall, Intiman’s managing director left abruptly, a substantial amount of debt was “discovered,” and a desperate fundraising drive’s “success” was followed by the news that Intiman would close its doors.

While initially the Board claimed that it was “Shocked! Shocked!” at this evident gambling with Intiman’s financial future, it also developed that at least part of the Board had approved spending down millions of dollars from Intiman’s endowment over the past few years (it’s now been entirely spent on retiring debt).

The decision to hire Russell as consulting artistic director is a very preliminary step, Bradburn told me. In October, the full plan for the theatre will be revealed. That’s when Russell and the Board will present their artistic and business strategy to arts funders and to the Seattle Center, which remains on the hook for rent for the Intiman Playhouse. (Bradburn also disputed the accuracy of some of the points I raised in my email–though of course the Board has yet to release an official audit of the crisis, which would make accuracy a little easier to come by.)

With these early details, you get the impression that Intiman plans to follow in ACT Theatre’s footsteps, which is not surprising since they’re being advised by consultant Susan Trapnell, author of ACT’s near-death turnaround. In particular, Intiman may become as much a hosting venue as a self-producing one, though (since Intiman doesn’t own the Playhouse) it remains to be seen if that’s as financially helpful as it is for ACT Theatre.

Another thing that may strike loyal Intiman-goers as strange (besides the members of the original “hold-up gang” appearing to circle around for another run at them) is the emphasis on how this reinvention is a return to Intiman’s core identity and roots.

The announcement makes reference to Intiman’s history of “staging innovative work and attracting a loyal following of patrons committed to exploring contemporary topics through the lens of epic stories”–“contemporary” and “epic” have to be precisely the wrong words. Simply put, Intiman was Seattle’s home for classic plays, with the space’s intimacy trumpeted in the very name.

That’s troubling because if there’s a tendency I’ve seen in this Board, it’s a willingness to believe their own spin even as it divorces itself from a reality apparent to everyone else. Break from a classics tradition if you’d like, just don’t claim that it’s not a break.

Russell told Berson that “one of the main things the board learned” from the crisis was the need to be “financially viable and artistically robust. We’d become a leaner and more nimble organization, more pay-as-you-go.”

That sounds good, but it is boilerplate that anyone on the Board could have produced for you before that last crisis–no one sets out to be artistically non-viable and artistically frail. What matters is actual practice. The group of people in charge of Intiman’s “financial viability” is the same group that oversaw the Intiman that spent itself out of existence. How they have developed a new concept of viability while being unable to divulge how Intiman reached outright closure is a mystery fit for the stage.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Intiman Theatre is Now Closed for Business

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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.