Dallas' Theater Three initiates a $200,000 fundraising campaign to avert impending shutdown.
Rewritten Article:
Yo, listen up! This here's a tale about Theatre Three, one of Dallas' oldest and most beloved non-profit theater joints, that's in deep trouble. They've been around since 1961, and they've been a cornerstone of Dallas' arts scene. But lately, they've been strugglecity, USA.
The theater's bosses announced the other day that they're facing some major financial strains that could lead to the theater's closure. They're shouting from the rooftops and begging the community for help, 'cause if they don't get it, they'll have to hang up their spurs for good.
The theater said in a Facebook post that the ongoing erosion of support for the arts has dealt a devastating blow to their funding. Without some immediate and substantial help from the folks in Dallas, they'll be forced to shut down.
At its peak, Theatre Three employed eight full-time staffers, two apprentices, a bunch of part-time box office workers, and over 140 artists every season. That includes actors, directors, musicians, and other creative folk who help put on the shows. But since the COVID-19 pandemic, attendance dropped dramatically, and the theater's had a tough time bouncing back.
In 2020, they were one of the first venues in Dallas to get back to in-person performances. But the company Continue to struggle to get back on track. Last year, the building's property managers chose to tinker with the space, so they had to scrap the 62nd season. The renovations took longer than expected, pushing the theater to try out digital content on YouTube instead of the ol' live shows.
Ticket sales are the theater's main source of income, and since 2020, they've been steadily sliding downhill. Associate artistic director Christie Vela said they haven't been able to turn things around.
"Our tiny staff doesn't get much of a break," she said. "We're constantly producing, constantly trying to rent out the building, and trying to find ways to raise money to pay the rent."
To keep the doors open, the company wants to raise $200,000 to cover the rising costs of rent, insurance, and production. Vela thinks their biggest asset is the space itself. They've been renting it out to other art groups, like Shakespeare Dallas, Uptown Players, and Soul Rep, for years now. But they only charge those groups as much as they can afford. They've also gotten some help from The Arts Community Alliance (TACA) and the Texas Commission of the Arts, but it hasn't been enough.
"Our operating costs are high," she said. "They support us, but we're not the only ones in town, right? They can only give us so much."
Vela says it's demoralizing to have to beg the community for help.
"You're already an organization that depends so much on the goodwill of the patrons and the goodwill of the community," she said. "It's not the picture you want to paint when you're asking for help."
Since the announcement, an anonymous donor has pledged to match all contributions made to the company up to $100,000 by the end of May. That'd give the staff some breathing room to rethink things and plan for a brighter future.
So far, the theater's only managed to raise about a quarter of its total goal.
Here's the thing, though. The theater's problems aren't just from the COVID-19 pandemic. It's been struggling to make ends meet for a while, thanks to things like declining ticket sales and decreased support for the arts. And while some theaters have been coping with reductions in federal grants like those from the National Endowment for the Arts, Theatre Three didn't get an NEA grant and has been struggling to compensate for that loss.
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- The financial struggles of Theatre Three, a beloved Dallas non-profit theater since 1961, have been exacerbated by the ongoing erosion of support for the arts, which has negatively impacted their funding and has led to an appeal for help from the community.
- The survival of Theatre Three, which has a substantial economic impact on Dallas by employing staff, artists, and renting its space to other art groups, depends on the community's immediate support to meet rising costs and secure its future in the face of declining ticket sales and decreased support for the arts.
