Philadelphia Theatre Alliance calling it quits

It's curtains for the Greater Philadelphia Theatre Alliance, the organization serving theaters and audiences over two decades of explosive growth that raised the number of professional stages in the region to more than 50, the highest ever.

The alliance released a memo Wednesday saying it would fold June 30, at the end of its fiscal year, a victim both of tough economic times and the theater community's success; in the struggle for funding sources, it increasingly competed with the theaters it serves, many of which needed its services less as they became ever more robust.

The alliance's 25-member board voted last Thursday to shut down, according to Wednesday's statement. Bits of that news had spread in recent days, and the announcement left area producers scrambling to figure out the future status of alliance programming - particularly the annual Barrymore Awards, which recognize stage excellence here and have become a fixture on the theater community's October calendars.

About 25 leaders of stage companies met Wednesday morning at the Wilma Theater on South Broad Street for an update on the future of alliance projects that include box-office services, an auditions program, management training aimed at newer companies, and, of course, the Barrymores.

"Because this is all just happening, there's a lot of stuff to be figured out," said Terrence J. Nolen, producing artistic director of Arden Theatre Company, who was at the meeting. Nolen had been an early chairman of the alliance, when it was called the Performing Arts League at its 1990 founding.

Said Kevin Glaccum, artistic head of Azuka Theatre, also at the meeting: "There had been a feeling in the [theater] community that things may not have been going very well at the alliance, so I don't think it was a huge shock. The tone is, so now what do we do next?"

Action to safeguard some alliance programs has been swift. Walnut Street Theatre will take on a project that allows performers to audition for 30 or more artistic directors at one time. The Wilma will take over the alliance's ticketing system, which 10 theaters use as their box-office program. The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, which represents all of the arts, will assume some membership services and an audience development program - "both elements that seem like a close fit with what the Cultural Alliance is doing," said Tom Kaiden, its president. "We want to make sure that the good work of the alliance continues."

The Theatre Alliance is running on a shoestring staff - eight people including the technicians for its box-office ticketing operation - and an annual budget of just under $1 million. The 150 member theaters contribute dues that account for only $50,000, said Margie Salvante, the alliance's executive director since 2007. She said the theaters were paying the maximum they could afford.

Its funders were asking the alliance to come up with new ways to earn money, and Salvante said that, like other service organizations around the country, the group had no funds to develop new revenue streams. By continuing to find contributions, "we were left in a position of siphoning operating support away from our members - and that's what we really had to grapple with," she said.

Salvante had already notified members that she was planning to resign from her $75,000 post. Alliance board chairman Wendy S. White, who is general counsel for the University of Pennsylvania, said Salvante had tendered her resignation so that the board could consider a resolution to shut down without having to consider Salvante's future.

Philadelphia-area theaters now employ more than 1,000 people - actors, directors and producers; costume, sound, lighting and scenic designers; props finders; box-office personnel; development directors; marketers; and even script readers who look for new works. The region has just under 1,000 members of Actors Equity, the professional union of performers and stage managers.

"We're sticking a flag in the ground and saying 'mission accomplished' here," said Rebekah Sassi, the Walnut's director of advancement, a three-time alliance board chairman, and a member of the current board. "The exceptional success of the alliance and the theater community is evident."