Well, we received “the letter” in today’s mail. Alas, it didn’t say much — in fact, I learned more about the closure from the Los Angeles Times. Again, an example of treating your subscribers poorly. Here’s what they wrote:
Dear Friends,
By now many of you have heard the news that the Playhouse is taking some necessary steps towards financial reorganization that will affect our production calendar of upcoming events. In agreement with our board, we have made these choices to address serious financial challenges affecting the organization, in order to determine a responsible solution for our ongoing operation.
Out of respect and gratitude to you, our loyal subscribers, we wanted to tell you personally that we intend to meet these challenges head-on with strong fiscal oversight and transparency. We will diligently keep you informed about how these decisions will affect you and your current subscription. Please be assured that we have every intention of making every effort to find ways to honor our obligations to you. We certainly will share more information about how we intend to do that when we have more specific answers.
We profoundly thank you for your patience and your understanding. As always, we appreciate your tremendous support of the work on our stage and the overall mission of this great theatre.
Sincerely,
/s/ Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director
/s/ Shephen Eich, Executive Director
Here’s another excellent take on the situation from the LA Stage Blog. In particular, I truly recognize these sentiments:
But even under the best-case scenario, the cancellation of a subscription season at a theater of Pasadena’s prominence is terrible news for everyone who wants theaters to grow.
A subscription asks that you pay money upfront with the trust that you will at least see the promised fare, even if you don’t like all of it. Even that risk – that you might not like some of the plays – is too much for many consumers in today’s environment. Several years ago, Pasadena Playhouse instituted a program in which subscribers who didn’t like a particular production could receive additional ticket vouchers for shows that they were confident that they would enjoy.
Still, subscriptions are declining nationwide. If you add the additional chance that you might not even see five-sixths of what you bought, every arts subscriber within 50 miles will be spooked. Bye-bye, subscriptions. Bye-bye to the idea that theaters can do any planning or budgeting based on subscriptions, and to the ideal that a subscriber community feels loyalty to the institution beyond the merits or flaws of any particular production.
In a subscription-less world, it’s each show for itself, each theatergoer for himself or herself. Of course many smaller theaters and larger commercial productions already operate on that basis. But it’s a challenge to do so if you want to pay your performers and staff regular salaries as opposed to gas reimbursements, if you want people to be able to make a living in the theater instead of doing it as a glorified hobby.
Well said. The death of the Playhouse hurts the entire Theatre-going and -producing community in Southern California.
