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Monday, February 6, 2012

Theater Intiman Meets Its Goal

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 10:06 PM

Last summer, Intiman Theatre fell down after a rocky transition from longtime artistic director Bart Sher and longtime managing director Laura Penn to new artistic director Kate Whoriskey and new managing director Brian Colburn.

After the fall, Intiman decided to hire a new, young artistic director (Andrew Russell) and said if it raised $1 million by February, it'd mount a four-play summer festival with 12 actors in all the roles, repertory style.

February 1 came and went without meeting the goal (the theater had raised around $820,000 by then), so Intiman announced it'd wait until Friday, February 3 to make the $1 million. Then it said it'd wait until a board meeting on Monday to decide what to do.

As of a few hours ago, it has decided what to do. Intiman is going forward with the summer festival, which will include one Shakespeare play, one Ibsen play, one unnamed "American classic," and an unspecified new theatrical something by Dan Savage.

Congratulations, Intiman. We're all curious to see what's next.

Comments (6) RSS

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I want Intiman to succeed because I always want other artists to succeed. But there is one thing that has been bugging me the last two days in particular.

$1 million = 4 plays/12 actors

Is it just me, or are those some ugly and illuminating numbers? Not sure I like how the message in those numbers, so much clearer in this context than in an overall org budget, will play with general public.

Posted by JimJewell on February 7, 2012 at 8:11 AM

@1: not sure I see it. Ok, $250k/play. With, what, 20 performances or so? Plus set design, lighting, advertising, insurance, rent, and all the backstage staff? This seems like a shoestring budget.

Though roping Dan in was a bit of genius; that will put butts in seats.

Posted by also on February 7, 2012 at 8:51 AM

For comparison sake, what had they been at before? 6 plays, 6 millionish? And very few of those plays had a cast of 12. Yeah, it is a bit more than WET, but probably in line with the size of Book-it's or Seattle Shakes' scale of budgets.

Posted by Elevatorwaiter on February 7, 2012 at 9:59 AM

@2

I'd like Intiman to succeed but...1 mil for 4 plays is a shoestring budget? What crack are you smoking? Some really expensive high quality Mitt Romney-grade crack I guess.

Look at smaller professional companies in this town like New Century and Straw Shop. These ppl pay all their artists and have the same types of overhead you list. I don't know exactly how much they budget for each show, but New Century's first show--and possibly their most expensive with a huge cast, and it was a beautiful show, too--was reported in this paper at $90,000. Ask even smaller companies that pay much less and they will tell you they do a show for between 7k and 15k. Granted they pay artists very little and others not at all. But Intiman needs 250,000?!? And that's shoestring to you?!?!

Also keep in mind you do NOT list royalties as overhead. Which is apt because at least 2 (possibly 3) of those plays will be in the public domain, so they aren't paying any playwright royalties.

Again, I would rather Intiman make it than not, but the idea that they need 1 mil to do just 4 shows with the same 12 actors is mind boggling. Maybe that's how they got into all the money trouble in the first place.

Posted by Fried Worms on February 7, 2012 at 10:19 AM

My thoughts, for whatever they're worth: http://www.paulmullin.org/just-wrought/2…

Posted by Mullin

on February 7, 2012 at 1:36 PM

Intiman is still an Equity theater so they will have to pay union wages. Even if salaries eat up 3/4 of the budget, that still leaves $250k for sets/costumes/props/rent/marketing for a relatively short and fast season.

Hoping the "American Classic" is something worthwhile... Auntie Mame would be nice.

Posted by michael strangeways