For 26 years, Actors Theatre of Phoenix has presented stimulating shows with the intention of adding layers of dialogue into the community.
In downtown’s Herberger Theater Center, the group has built a reputation as an organization that takes risks to establish a connection between actors and audience members. These risks have earned the company several recognitions over time, such as Producing Theatre Company of the Year by the Arizona Theatre Alliance and Arts Organization of the Year by the Arts and Business Council of Greater Phoenix.
That legacy could dissolve unless Actors Theatre raises $140,000 by Dec. 31.
Private and corporate contributions, individual donations and grant dollars have all but disappeared, leaving Actors Theatre’s contributed income at $45,000 this fiscal year — down from nearly $570,000 in FY 2011.
Judy Rollings, one of the founders of Actors Theatre, said nothing specifically led to the organization’s downfall. That is, except for the recession.
“Everyone is scrambling to stay alive,” she said.
Rollings, a student at the Arizona Theater Company, started Actors Theatre in 1986 with Carol MacLeod, who was a teacher at the company.
While most theater companies begin as community theater organizations and grow to be more professional over time, Actors Theatre was founded with the intention to create a theater company for local professional actors and directors since there were few outlets for aspiring actors in the Phoenix area.
“We were the first company totally out of Phoenix that was for equity actors,” Rollings said.
The hope was that Actors Theatre would become the second stage to Arizona Theater Company. However, management was not interested, leading Actors Theatre to pursue its goals elsewhere.
The newly formed group took up residency in the basement of a bank located on Van Buren Street and Central Avenue. Today, that location is home to a bus stop.
For $4,000 a month, with nine months provided to the company for free, Actors Theatre was able to begin putting on numerous productions.
“Artistically, we did well,” Rollings said. “Financially, we struggled.”
Rollings took over as producing artistic director for Actors Theatre in 1987 and the company’s financial situation began to turn around with the launch of “Brown Bag Theater” — a series of short plays performed for the lunchtime crowd in downtown Phoenix during the summer.
“Within a couple of years we had paid off our debt to the bank and were operating in the black,” Rollings said.
After years of success at the Herberger Theater Center, which has been Actors Theatre’s home since 1989, the company has fallen back into financial turmoil after losing most of its funding from corporate contributions, especially from banks.
At the company’s peak, it received $100,000 in revenue from corporations. Last year it received $3,500.
Jeff Thomson, who has been designing sets for Actors Theatre for 25 years, agreed the recession has been one of the causes of the group’s struggle, but Phoenix has also had troubles of its own.
“Phoenix has a specific style of culture,” Thomson said. “This is a tourist destination, but it’s not a tourist destination to come to the theater. They come here to play golf.”
Thomson said working to produce sets for Actors Theatre is an easy process, due to the comfort level 25 years brings and the level of dialogue that the theater produces.
“With most of the larger theater companies who do musicals and things like that, it’s more about what you’re looking at, not what they’re saying,” Thomson said.
Serious acting, as opposed to comedies or musicals, are far and few between in Arizona, Thomson said, but Actors Theatre has always strictly performed thought-provoking plays.
“To have to be the fifth or sixth largest city in the United States and not have a professional theater that is producing serious work is, to me, just an embarrassment,” he said. “Give them a couple of bucks so we don’t have to hang our head like we have from other political things that keep us in the news for all the wrong reasons.”
Matthew Wiener, the current producing artistic director of the Actors Theatre, has been with the company for 16 years. In his time leading the company, Actors Theatre has defined itself by incorporating more thought-provoking and socially-risky concepts into performances.
“I don’t want to think it is too risky,” Wiener said. “The community is saying right now, ‘no, it is not too risky. We want what you’re doing.’”
While the content of shows at Actors Theatre are offensive to some audiences, Wiener said, this kind of theater is only risky in Phoenix where people haven’t been as exposed to the kind of social dialogue that is occurring around the world.
“The nature of our programming is counter to the dominant culture in metro Phoenix, so that is a challenge,” Wiener said. “But Phoenix is the sixth largest city in the nation. We think they should be able to support our theater company.”
Over the past three years, the budget for Actors Theatre decreased by over $500,000, which forced management to make cuts, including a grant writer and certain productions. Donations have also been declining since 2008 and eventually Actors Theatre was forced to make the decision whether to turn to the public or simply shut down, Wiener said.
“We didn’t want to close the doors without giving the community a chance to respond,” he said.
When Actors Theatre went to the community for help, the group’s pleas did not fall on deaf ears.
The first goal was to raise $70,000 by Nov. 30, which proved successful well before the set date. The goal of raising an additional $140,000 by Dec. 31 is underway with $30,000 already gained, including $3,000 from a recent raffle put on by Bliss/reBAR.
“It is looking more hopeful,” Wiener said. “We are encouraged by the response from the community, both financially and also the kinds of comments people are making. People are kind of stepping up to raise money for us.”
In a final effort to meet the goal set for the end of the year, Actors Theatre will perform a less-costly version of “A Christmas Carol” — a production the company has performed for 19 years — for a final fundraiser Dec. 24 on the Herberger Theater Center Main Stage.
If Actors Theatre survives financially, the organization intends on instituting changes that helped turn the tables years ago by incorporating a family-friendly summer program with the hopes that it could balance out the more controversial entertainment throughout the rest of the year.
“We are making some changes to try to make sure that when we get out of this situation that we don’t get back into it,” Wiener said.
Contact the reporter at dmzayas@asu.edu
