Long Wharf Theatre Faces Double Challenge In Pandemic
In early March, New Haven’s Tony Award-honored Long Wharf Theater confronted the biggest crisis in the organization’s 56-year history.
“Basically, our survival is on the line,” said the theater’s artistic director, Jacob G. Padrón, at the time. Padrón began his tenure at the New Haven theater just last year.
“We are in a really, really risky place,” said managing director Kit Ingui. “We are at a moment where, if we don't make a shift and change something, then we are faced with the question; How much longer can the theater go on?”
With a decade-long string of deficits — some in the $1 million range, $3 million in accumulated debt, declining attendance and an endowment that was about half of what it was at its high-water mark — the storied not-for-profit theater faced a do-or-die dilemma. Come up with a plan and resources to right and sustain the theater — or bring down the curtain for good.
Just as the theater was about to go public with a $5.5 million “Stabilization Initiative” — in which it had already raised $2.3 million — the coronavirus pandemic put the brakes on performances, necessitated slicing the staff and scrambled its new plans for survival.
“The fundraising for the stabilization plan is not in the forefront now,” says Laura Pappano, LWT’s board chair. “What we’re doing is what many organizations across the country are doing, which is grappling with their immediate needs.”
The new survival strategy is two-fold: reaching out to donors and cutting costs.
The theater cancelled its two final shows of the 2019-20 season.