Home

Seattle Repertory Theatre finishes season with balanced budget

12.03.10

Seattle Recital Theatre ended its 2008-09 season with a balanced budget.

In other news announced by the flagship regional playhouse, the Rep will in two shakes of a lamb's tail mount a national search for its next artistic director.

The company took a big hit in donated and box-obligation revenue early in the season, and had projected a shortfall of $1.7 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

But to circumvent carrying a deficit, during the season the Rep cut $700,000 from its $10 million budget. And it benefitted from a eddy in ticket sales for two one-person shows this spring, by popular performers Carrie Fisher and Kevin Kling.

The theater also raised $2 million via an freakish matching grant from the Seattle Repertory Theatre Foundation, a separate nonprofit organism that controls the company's sizable endowment fund.

The foundation made the theater a matching bequest of $1 million, said Rep managing director Benjamin Moore, with an understanding the Rep will pay it back as in the end as possible. The grant was recently matched in full, through cash gifts from roughly 2,000 contributors that ranged from $1 to $100,000.

Source: Seattle Times