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Crisis pulls curtain on Playhouse
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The Youngstown Playhouse
The stock market meltdown has caused a different kind of blackout for this theater, and a long intermission.
YOUNGSTOWN — The financially struggling Youngstown Playhouse will suspend theatrical productions until spring.
Despite dwindling attendance and a building badly in need of repairs, the Playhouse has been able to keep its head above water. But a one-two punch of the national financial crisis and high utility costs expected this winter forced the decision.
John Holt, the Playhouse’s executive director, called it “a perfect storm,” but he stressed that the closing is an intermission, not a final curtain.
Productions of “And Then There Were None,” which was scheduled to open Nov. 7, and “Big,” which was to run Dec. 5-20, will be postponed until summer of 2009, said Holt. Exact makeup dates have not yet been set.
This weekend’s Youth Theater productions of “Hansel and Gretel” will go on as scheduled.
The regular schedule is expected to resume with “Blood Brothers,” which opens March 13, although Holt said that is a tentative decision.
Holt called the hiatus “a proactive strategy for long-term health.”
“We have lost the majority of our regular annual giving from grant houses and foundations, and we are going into the toughest part of the year,” said Holt. “Our utility costs multiply by four or five times during the winter months.”
The stock market meltdown of recent weeks caused the grants to dry up. “We have lost more than two-thirds of the support we were getting,” said Holt. “Foundations accumulate moneys for grants based on how the stock market is doing. For some, [the Wall Street crisis] was the last straw.”
Box-office receipts account for only about 20 percent of the Playhouse’s revenue, said Holt.
The Playhouse building was built in the 1950s and is poorly insulated. Much of its 45,000 square feet is in the large, high-ceilinged auditorium. “It is hard to maintain a comfortable temperature,” said Holt. “The heat runs continuously until March.”
The Playhouse offices will remain open through the winter. Educational and customer service functions will not be interrupted.
Theaters are struggling throughout the country, as the sagging economy forces people to slash their entertainment budget.
More importantly, the middle-aged generations have switched to home entertainment systems. “Most of our subscribers are senior citizens, and there is a big age chasm between them and the next group of patrons,” said Holt.
“Smaller-sized theaters [with lower overhead] find it easier to make ends meet,” he said.
The Playhouse Board of Directors discussed its problems at a meeting last week. The decision to implement the winter hiatus was reached this week. “We held off until the last possible second,” said Holt.
Though the hiatus sounds bad, the Playhouse is looking for a silver lining. “It will provide a chance to look at the big picture,” said Holt. “We can look at realigning the schedule so that we are dark from late October until spring, and then stay open all summer,” he said. “Sometimes you have to let the machine break down in order to see how to fix it.”
In recent years the Playhouse building has been plagued with maintenance issues that are starting to develop into safety concerns, said Holt. The building needs a new roof and plumbing work.
There is always talk of leaving the building, which sits just off Glenwood Avenue on the South Side, but Holt said that’s easier said than done. “Moving sounds simple, but it’s a logistical and financial challenge,” he said.
The building, he pointed out, is the finest live-theater facility between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, and it allows for productions that other local theaters cannot attempt.