TAG Goes Belly Up
It ain't easy being a mid-sized professional theatre: not that long after Seattle's Empty Space declared empty pockets, the 30-year-old Tacoma Actors Guild has closed down. In January of 2005 TAG faced a coronary-inducing $400,000 debt, and though it had made some progress retiring it, their Board president Jim Handmacher said in the Tacoma News Tribune that key foundations were standoffish:
“We were optimistic with (new director Charlotte Tiencken) that TAG would get back to its old artistic standard, and I think that was confirmed with ‘Proof’,” he said. “But too many people (in grant-giving foundations) were in wait-and-see mode. No organization can survive if its supporters do that.”
Not to kick the TAG people in the teeth while they're down, but that's ridiculous. They're talking about needing $100,000 in operating capital to keep the doors open, and foundations have never been crazy about that kind of in extremis giving. (Sometimes individual major donors will pony up via a foundation.)
People don't want to talk about the shark in the water that is financial insecurity. When Empty Space closed in Seattle, people said it was because it got "squeezed out" from smaller and larger competition. That's not the case with TAG. It's not the case with the Seattle Symphony. And everyone's still keeping an uneasy eye on ACT.
What's swallowing arts organizations whole is the gradual disappearance of the middle class at the exact time that the old money, paternalistic giving entities are no longer making major civic investments in "their" community. (Giving is much more interactive and cause-related -- and foundations will even stipulate that no more than 15%, say, of an organization's revenue can come from grants from any sources.) Arts organizations are the canary in the coal mine. They try to shift costs back to the customer, but with audiences already declining it's hard enough to get them to buy a ticket, let alone donate.
Matthew Richter's gone into more detail about the problematic nonprofit business model. CHAC's Matthew Kwatinetz has talked about the financial pressures of even indie arts production. But no matter how you slice it, that middle class audience and its buying power is diminishing. Which has, of course, implications beyond a canceled performance of Romeo & Juliet.
