Talk about second acts.
In a major financial coup for an Atlanta arts organization, the Georgia Shakespeare company will formally announce today that it has received a badly needed $300,000 grant from the Charles Loridans Foundation.
The money, to be given in $100,000 installments over the next three years, will be used to dramatically expand the company’s annual Shakespeare production in Piedmont Park. The five-day event will move from the Lake Clara Meer area of the park to the new Greensward portion at the northern end. So what has been known to thousands of Atlantans as “Shake at the Lake,” will now be called “Shake at the Park.”
“I want to shout this from the mountaintop,” said Richard Garner, producing artistic director of Georgia Shakespeare, which has its permanent home at Oglethorpe University. “This green-lights us for the next three years.”
It’s a shot in the arm for a troupe that was so financially strapped last September that it had to put out an emergency plea for cash so that it could finish its fall show. The following five months were touch-and-go as Georgia Shakespeare sought to raise a half-million dollars by the end of 2011, so that it wouldn’t have to lower its curtain for good. It raised $524,000, largely through individual donations from audience members, but also through foundations including the Loridans, which gave $50,000 to the emergency campaign, said Lauren Morris, managing director of Georgia Shakespeare.
The company is just one of several midsize theater groups that has had to launch a do-or-die cash drive in the past 18 months. But such campaigns are not sustainable business models. Nonprofits like Georgia Shakespeare are having to develop new strategies to not only stay afloat, but to thrive. And arts funders such as Loridans are shifting their giving models, targeting those arts groups that have the strongest chance of survival.
“All organizations are hard- pressed these days as there’s been a general cutting back in giving from individuals, businesses and foundations,” said Robert Edge, chairman of Loridans. “That’s woeful because during these times we’re evermore in need of things that feed the soul. We’re doing the best we can to help where we can.”
The summer festival began in 2004, but in 2009 and 2011, it had to be canceled due to lack of cash to produce it. The $300,000 will help Georgia Shakespeare’s signature event survive, Morris said.
The new location will allow the company to double the number of patrons for each performance, from 1,000 to 2,000 a night. In past years, tickets to the event have been free. No longer. Going forward, only a fraction of the tickets will be free. The rest will be for advanced purchase, though prices have not been set.
The grant covers only half the cost of producing each “Shake at the Park” season. The rest will have to come, in part, from additional fundraising. And because the grant is earmarked specifically for the Piedmont Park series, it can’t go toward retiring the rest of the company’s overall debt, which stands at $230,000, Morris said.
A 2011 study of 40 metro Atlanta arts organizations by the Nonprofit Finance Fund found that nearly 80 percent had less than three months’ worth of operating liquidity. Ideally, they should have six months or more. The theater hopes to have the debt paid in full by the end of 2014, and has plans to hire a development director that will focus solely on fundraising.
For now the group is relieved that it can plan for its upcoming run that begins May 9 with “The Tempest.”
“It doesn’t take us completely out of the woods, but it’s such a big vote of confidence,” Morris said. “ ‘Shake at the Park’ is one of the most accessible events we have and it introduces us to others who might not have visited us at Oglethorpe. And it puts us on par with other cities that have great summer ‘Shakespeare in the Park.’ ”
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