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Leading the Way with Jill S. Robinson is a journey into the international arts and culture industry. Join Jill, a driving force in the sector who has counseled arts leaders for more than three decades, for conversations with some of the most insightful and daring minds leading the way to a resilient 21st century.
[00:00:03.290] - Jill Robinson
Greetings. Jill Robinson here, CEO of TRG Arts, the consultancy firm that works globally to strengthen the arts and cultural sector. And today, as part of that effort, I'm launching a new podcast called Leading the Way with Jill Robinson. Leading the Way is going to be focused on the issues that we think and I think lead need to be considering as they make their way into the next decade of arts and cultural management and guidance and effectiveness. My first, my inaugural podcast. This one I'm joined by Vincent Van Bleet with the Phoenix Theater Company, jill Anderson with Syracuse Stage, both TRG clients, both theater organization leaders. I hope you enjoy this inaugural episode. I'm grateful you chose to join me today. Vincent Van Vliet with the Phoenix Theater Company and Jill Anderson with Syracuse Stage. Welcome from the east coast. Jill, thank you for making time to be with me today.
[00:01:08.870] - Jill Anderson
Thanks for having us.
[00:01:10.120] - Jill Robinson
You betcha. And Vincent, you're on your way on to your great summer holiday. Thanks for making time for leading the Way before you head out.
[00:01:19.390] - Vincent Van Vliet
Yeah, really happy to be here.
[00:01:21.290] - Jill Robinson
So, you know, both of you, that the orientation that I have to this conversation is in the context of so much really robust and excellent reporting about the state of the American theater today. It is like other industries that were really badly affected during the pandemic. The restaurant industry is one that comes to mind. The theater industry has been deeply, deeply and more long term affected by the variables that came out of the pandemic and were in the pandemic. But there was a lot of things going on in American theater and nonprofit arts and culture before the pandemic. I think maybe I'd just like to start with vincent, I'll start with you. If there's one thing you just would say about what you think about the state of American theater today, what would be your couple of sentences to get us kicked off?
[00:02:31.570] - Vincent Van Vliet
Yeah, I would say I'm not surprised about the current state of affairs. We were having this conversation individually at least and maybe amongst a few organizations about business model prior to COVID. And I think everybody thought maybe the shuttered venue operator grant was going to actually help put people on a new playing field. And the fact that that has not been the outcome for most theaters of the use of those funds, that they have found themselves having used up those funds and still dealing with business model issues. And for a lot of them, a lack of return to what their pre COVID attendance levels were and their pre COVID donor levels were.
[00:03:24.450] - Jill Anderson
Right.
[00:03:24.840] - Jill Robinson
We're going to talk about that reality and how it's different in both of your organizations. Jill, top line, just to kick us off, observations about what you see.
[00:03:34.470] - Jill Anderson
I think it's a really exciting, if not incredibly daunting time for all of us in the field. I was reflecting with my artistic director partner earlier today that folks my age, I'm 45 were sort of the last people who were raised by the founders. And so we had that opportunity to sit at the knee of the folks who launched this movement in America. And now we have this chance to see the staff who are coming up behind us, the leaders who are coming up behind us, and maybe have this real generational moment in the field at which we are as. Vincent said, able to reflect on the models and make those generational changes to sustain the field, or if not the field as we know it, the field in a way that contributes to the communities we're situated in.
[00:04:15.730] - Jill Robinson
Yeah, okay, so you both know, just as a piece of context here, you both are longtime Trgrs clients. And I say that because I want my listeners to know that these are two organizations that we know well and who share some common strategic grounding to running nonprofit arts and culture theater organizations. I would just say it's shared grounding doesn't mean right or wrong. It's just a shared orientation that we've got to some pieces and parts of this know, you both know that TRG at the beginning of the Pandemic started a free, what initially was called COVID sector benchmark, now is called the arts and culture benchmark. And we're updating and comparing regularly how the field looks from a consumer standpoint since the Pandemic. And on the main, what we know is that between the four categories of arts and culture that we have enough ita to be able to report on regularly, which include music, classical music, dance, performing arts centers, or presenting receiving venues. And theater. Theater has taken the longest to recover and has had the deepest sort of troughs during the period and the slowest recovery cycle. Today, through the end of May, audiences are still down in the 30s revenues.
[00:06:08.700] - Jill Robinson
Similarly, philanthropies in theater has taken a hit even more deeply recently than what we saw by the end of last year. So the field and the sector michael Paulson, one of his articles suggested not suggested, said. He interviewed 72 different leaders. I think one or both of you were part of talking to him about that. So there's lots of data. Here is my point about the state of American theater, and yet there are differences in your realities, and yours aren't the only ones. But we're starting with you because we know you and because we want to highlight both of you and the successes relative to that data that we see. So there's a series of initial kinds of data points or questions I want to ask you just to get some standard or standards for operations out there before we tackle some of the more leadership and philosophical and other kinds of questions in this conversation. So I'm going to start with this. There's a half a dozen of them. I'm going to start with this one. Jill, when did Syracuse stage reopen? During the pandemic? In what year and under what circumstances? Can you just give us a sense of in outdoor capacity?
[00:07:42.220] - Jill Robinson
Give us a sense of your reopening.
[00:07:44.030] - Jill Anderson
Realities after we first welcome people back in the building with a fall 2021 production of, oddly, a pandemic or Outbreak play, Eureka Day, deciding it was not, in fact, too soon, we were able to open at full capacity. Little Outbreak comedy. We were able to open at full capacity, but we were doing vaccine checks and full masking at that point. In some ways, I don't think we ever closed, and we can cover this ground later, but we produced a full season of filmed work the previous year, and I think that's been a key.
[00:08:18.110] - Jill Robinson
Differentiator for us, a full season of filmed work. So there were digital access to what you were doing?
[00:08:25.270] - Jill Anderson
Correct.
[00:08:26.690] - Jill Robinson
Okay, Vincent, can you describe the realities in Phoenix for us?
[00:08:31.890] - Vincent Van Vliet
Yeah, we reopened for live performances actually in October of 2020. So just about six months after closure, we spent that time modeling and then building an outdoor stage across the parking lot from us at Central United Methodist Church. That is a giant church that was also shut down. They have a 20,000 square foot courtyard that's enclosed, and so we were able to pivot very quickly and mobilize. And we built a 250 seat, socially distanced outdoor stage in pairs of two so that we could get back to live performing very quickly.
[00:09:10.370] - Jill Robinson
Let's talk for a minute. You keep the mic. Vincent, the realities around masking and vaccinations, what kind of political policy, rather environment were you operating in back then?
[00:09:24.790] - Vincent Van Vliet
Yeah, we actually had an approved Actors Equity Association health plan. We were one of only 17 theaters in the country actually approved to reopen for live performances. Based on what we were doing. And from a cast perspective, we kept everybody isolated and masked. In a couple of shows, we actually cast actors that were cohabitating together so that we could reduce the risk of them being exposed by other folks. Unfortunately for us, the entire period of time from October to May of 2021, we didn't have a single COVID case amongst any cast member or crew member that was involved with the production. On the audience side, masks were required, and we were doing temperature checks. We were not doing vaccine checks at the time because vaccines weren't even available, quite frankly, until I think it was March, maybe of 2021, where they were, the kind of the mass rollout occurred. So we didn't really have a lot of pushback until roughly May. After vaccines were more readily available, we started to get some mask pushback with only a few patrons, and we were able to manage those situations carefully because it was mandated by the government at that point.
[00:10:44.980] - Vincent Van Vliet
So we had kind of the ability to fall back on the city and state protocols for having live events. And that pretty much took care of any fallout or political pushback at that time.
[00:11:00.790] - Jill Robinson
Yeah.
[00:11:01.090] - Jill Anderson
Okay.
[00:11:01.330] - Jill Robinson
So I hear October 20, opening Equity contract safety protocols, creative cohabitating, folks that's creative and adhering and creating what felt like, even if it was frustrating to some of your patrons, maybe on occasion, a reality of safety outdoors and safety protocols that were being adhered to. Jill, what was your reality?
[00:11:31.250] - Jill Anderson
I'm remembering that year of our virtual programming, and I'll give tremendous credit to our artistic team for finding similarly, either the one person play or the actors who already lived together. But it felt a bit like the shoemakers elves. We would put actors in a room alone, zoom in a director, leave costumes and props in the room at night, knowing certain air changes could happen, do zoom instruction from a designer, helping the actor deal with their own wigs and makeup. We did bizarre things. There was a actually, the actor lived in Chicago, and we shipped everything out to Chicago. They were able to get a gallery space in their apartment building. And that entire production, that was Twilight. So she was playing like a multitude of characters and doing her own wigs. There's a play called Anna Perna that takes place in a beat up RV. We have a relationship with a pair of actors who are a couple who live in a sprinter van. They parked it on a soundstage in town. We dressed it to make it look terrible and installed GoPro cameras throughout their RV home. I mean, the things we did, we did watch audience engagement with those film projects diminish over the course of the year.
[00:12:59.220] - Jill Anderson
And then once we did reopen the idea, do we film? Do we not film? Are we filming for folks who are still not comfortable coming out? Or are we filming in case we have to shut down? Which we did have to shut down numerous times after reopening. And eventually we did determine after about a year, we stopped filming the productions, which to me is a bit of a loss from an accessibility standpoint, but it was not sustainable. And the viewership was into the 100 number of looks for an extraordinary amount of time and financial investment to do them. Yeah, I remember some wild things.
[00:13:36.230] - Jill Robinson
Yes, you did. I love the detail, the rich detail of what that was like doing in direction. Here's how you put on your makeup. No, take that off. This way.
[00:13:46.640] - Jill Anderson
Wig number one of 27.
[00:13:48.700] - Jill Robinson
Yeah. Wow. Right. I remember thinking, as a person who cares deeply about the field with such optimism and hope that I still have about this channel called Digital, and I do believe it will be part of the future. I think the experiences we've got and the practice we got in some of that will re emerge. But from a safety point of view, when you reopen Jill, I didn't ask, did it wrinkle or did it frustrate or was it more challenging than what you heard with peers? Did you look at it going, look, actually, we emerged from that pretty safely. Is there something that you would say about that?
[00:14:35.290] - Jill Anderson
We didn't have a lot of challenges with folks being comfortable with and embracing the safety protocols we put in place from either the staff and artist side to the patron side. As things went further on, we did start to hear from patrons who didn't want to mask, but they still, you know, we'll never know the silent folks who didn't come back because they had to mask. But for the most part, folks, we didn't have many blips.
[00:15:03.150] - Jill Robinson
Right, okay. So in the New York Times piece, there's a lot of conversation about the examples where organizations have cut back or closed and the reasons why. But there's also three variables that Paulson speaks to about or the factors that led to success for those organizations that have fared better or indeed thrived. One of them is opening earlier, so whether it was digital or we went outside and went check on both of your sides programming choices. I'm curious, Vincent, what programming choices? Was that intentional? Were they intentionally for the time, were they different in any way at the Phoenix Theater Company?
[00:15:59.970] - Vincent Van Vliet
They were different, but not in the way that you might think. Because when we moved back indoors, we decided we made the decision intentionally to do smaller shows because we didn't feel like it was going to be safe to put together a 20 or 25 person large scale scale musical. So the arc of our first season back in for the 2021 2022 season started off with smaller incremental shows and all of our chorus musicals were stacked at the back end of our season. And so that was a new dynamic for us as we were trying to sort that out. So programming was decided based on cast size, but the mix of the season overall was similar to what we would normally produce. We just stacked the bigger shows at the tail end when we felt like it might be safer. We were trying to buy time to more safely perform together. But much like Jill, we closed multiple times for various outbreaks amongst the cast and we would go down for three or four days. In one case, it was eight days that we were down, and then we would open back up again and keep going.
[00:17:13.980] - Jill Robinson
You mentioned your traditional program and give our listeners a paragraph. Phoenix Theater programs or presents?
[00:17:20.100] - Vincent Van Vliet
Yeah, phoenix Theater does a variety of work plays in musicals. We are most known for the musical. The body of musical work that we do, a lot of it is a blend of some of the classic American musicals mixed with we try to do one or two world premieres per season mixed with more contemporary musicals that are fresh from coming off Broadway or off the first national tour yeah.
[00:17:45.640] - Jill Robinson
Good. Okay, so what we heard was that mix was similar. As we were recovering, we might have backloaded from a safety standpoint, numbers of bodies on stage standpoint, but the mix was similar. Jill Syracuse stage. Produces what? And how did it change?
[00:18:01.980] - Jill Anderson
Did it sure, I would say fairly little change in the years since we've reopened. I mean, everything we threw at the wall, while we were not open to the public, is its own story. But in 21 22 and 22 23, our programming was pretty similar to a typical year. In both of those year, we had six plays, one of which was a world premiere musical, one of which was a world premiere play, one Big Holiday, Family Splashy Musical and three other titles along the way. So pretty consistent programming.
[00:18:35.070] - Jill Robinson
Okay. I think the increasingly openly stated question about programming is, was it responsive to the call from a variety of places to adjust programming to meet the moment, the racial equity moment, the political moment? Do either of you feel like Syracuse Stage or the Phoenix Theater Company responded specifically to the time that way? From a programmatic point of view, I.
[00:19:11.510] - Jill Anderson
Think that we did only by building on work we had already been doing. This organization has a pretty remarkable history in that of its five artistic directors, two have been black men, and in a way that has informed the programming of the organization for 50 years. And so I think what Bob has done in his tenure as artistic director is really building on that track record of inclusion and empathy building by putting stories on stage that help all of us see life beyond our own experiences. And I think the programming in recent years here has really reflected that. I must brag a little bit. A highlight for our work in this regard is the world premiere musical, how to Dance in Ohio, which centers the voices of young autistic characters played by young autistic actors readying for a formal dance. And that show was just announced to open on Broadway this fall. So we're thrilled that that partnership has manifested that result.
[00:20:12.050] - Jill Robinson
Joe great. Vincent?
[00:20:13.600] - Vincent Van Vliet
Yeah, tagging on to that. I would say in similar fashion, we have been working on equity, diversity and inclusion well before COVID looking at casting practices, looking at our hiring practices, our box office was already bilingual. Several of our education programs were already bilingual. In terms of inclusiveness, we have our summer camp program that is specifically geared towards those that have autism. And so I feel like our work has just continued to be an extension of the work that we already began well before there was a movement around it, because culturally it felt right. I mean, we are in Phoenix, Arizona, 40 some percent of our population is Hispanic. The show that actually closed out our hundredth anniversary season, that was the last show we did before we shut down was Americano, which was the celebration of true life story of Tony Valdovinos, who was an immigrant brought across the border at two. He did not know he wasn't a citizen and until he tried to join the Marines when he was 18 and found out that his parents had never told him that he was a dreamer. And that was then coming out of COVID the first show that we were actually able to get back on its feet and open it off Broadway in New York right as New York was reopening.
[00:21:44.110] - Vincent Van Vliet
So I feel like our commitment there started before COVID and it really, I think, helped us because we brought our audience along with the change. It didn't feel like it was an abrupt change that I think some of our peer institutions have attempted to do that may have alienated audiences that weren't prepared for those moves. And there is something to be said for bringing audiences along with the body of work that you want to do. And when you want to try things, you start to put them in the season a few at a time. We didn't have a track record, for instance, of doing world premieres. They used to just not sell. And we really had to spend a great deal of time over the course of a decade acclimating our audience to wanting to see work that they had never heard of before and not be afraid of titles or that know, world premiere musical.
[00:22:39.410] - Jill Anderson
Vincent, we have to send you Brian Kihada somewhere over the border if you don't know it already. That was one of the world premieres we did in that first season. We were back.
[00:22:47.450] - Vincent Van Vliet
Oh, wow. Yeah, please do.
[00:22:49.590] - Jill Anderson
Yep.
[00:22:51.910] - Jill Robinson
I'm so glad about that. Even just that exchange, the sharing that is happening right now. Okay. One other thing that Paulson reported on was market conditions in organizations that are not suffering as badly or thriving. Now, Phoenix Vincent is the fifth largest, I think, market in the country. But from a theater perspective, describe the or arts and cultural perspective, recognizing that arts and culture gets a small share of any market. So let's just call that a spade. But what does the arts and cultural competitive market or for the discretionary dollar look like? There.
[00:23:41.030] - Vincent Van Vliet
Oh, boy. So I don't actually look at peer organizations, whether they're performing arts centers know, we have another regional theater that produces in town as competitors, because Phoenix arts goers in phoenix go to multiple organizations. We know this. We have the data. We have a huge overlap with the opera. We have huge overlap with the other theater companies. And really, it is a byproduct of zip codes. That you do a zip code study in Phoenix, you can kind of see who traffics your organization in what areas of both the central core and the outlying. That I don't know if that's unique to Phoenix being the significantly large market it is the competitive forces, I would say is more for product, right, the ability to secure a license on a show. Phoenix was built in a very segmented way, so you've got Phoenix proper, but then all the suburbs have grown into the city. So it's this large metropolis. So, you've know, Tempe, Scottsdale Chandler, Gilbert Peoria, Glendale North, Scottsdale, Wickenburg, there's this whole group of cities that all then built their own performing arts centers and are doing touring productions. Know, after the first national tour comes through and plays in Tempe, there are a series of what I'll call B tours coming through the various performing arts center, maybe for a weekend, maybe for a night, but we compete for product, right?
[00:25:17.340] - Vincent Van Vliet
It's hard to secure new contemporary musicals because tours always trump the ability of a regional theater to pick up a date because they're picking up multiple cities. So if I want a show and it's coming through another theater, even for one night, they burn the market for a year and I can't get access to the license. And so it's such a unique environment for us that I don't think really exists outside of Phoenix because I don't think there's any other market that has just the sheer volume of performing arts centers that are competing for product. One of them in particular has completely converted to being like the concert venue. So they bring in musical acts and they're incredibly successful bringing know, world famous musical acts to perform there. But they've virtually stopped doing tours altogether because the tour market is so competitive in Phoenix.
[00:26:05.180] - Jill Robinson
Yeah, it's really interesting. Jill, we're going to talk about Syracuse, but I think the assumption is that if you operate in a market where there's less competition, it will be easier for you to recover. Phoenix is not that market. There are lots and lots and lots of venues. Lots and lots and lots of there are two regional theater venues just to start with your own particular type of art form. There's lots of arts and culture, there's professional sports. It brings all of the things that a major market brings. And there's also, I think, an assumption that that makes it harder. And what you and I, I think all three of us agree on is that that creates a database of people who are spending money. And the question is, do we compete or not? How much? And I'm going to get to where and how have you invested during this time. But the construct I just want to clarify, Jill, talk about Syracuse and how you view that market from a competitive.
[00:27:06.620] - Jill Anderson
Point of sure, we are, in a sense, for a producing house, the big dog in town, and that certainly has its advantages to know. The ecosphere here consists of roadhouse who increasingly is launching national tours, particularly in partnership with Disney. So that has an impact on we presume there are folks who are buying one show a year for the big family outing. And when lion King is starting a national tour downtown that may or may not have an impact. But as you said, Vincent, the data doesn't really back that up. The data indicates that people are cultural omnivores and that core group who's supporting the Contemporary Art Museum in town is supporting us, is supporting Syracuse University d one sports that people in this town who go to things, go to all the things. So that's been not an identified challenge for us here.
[00:28:04.010] - Jill Robinson
Yeah. Okay, so different markets for certain different realities. So the last question I've got is about how you invested during this time. So I want you to reflect on your staffing levels and what you continued to invest in, or how that changed, as well as where you invested elsewhere. Can you just give it Jill, keep the mic, talk about staffing and talk about other areas of investment during this time period?
[00:28:43.260] - Jill Anderson
Sure. And I don't think any conversation like this that involves Syracuse Stage should go without noting we have a distinct differentiator in the relationship we have with our host university. The fact that we're in partnership with Syracuse University who maintained their financial support for Syracuse Stage throughout the Pandemic, that's a key differentiator for us. In exchange, that money is earned by the services that our staff provide to the Department of Drama. So I'm so proud that throughout we have maintained full employment at full compensation, even offered bonuses in a couple of those tough years. Small, but that means something to folks. And part of that is because we were obligated to provide the same level of support to the University's Department of Drama. And part of that is because, philosophically, one of our three identified core values that the board has adopted is taking care of the makers, taking care of the people within the building. So I think the board's endorsement of leadership's plan to maintain full staffing really has made a huge difference for us. And I'll say too candidly, halting or pausing our contract with TRG might have been an easy choice to look for resources at that time, and it's not a choice we made.
[00:30:00.020] - Jill Anderson
And I think we continue to see the benefit of maintaining that relationship and that work through bizarre and unsettling times. So I think the choices we made to maintain staff remain in constant contact with our patrons, even to the point of producing that full virtual season. We never disappeared from folks consciousness. There are folks who chose to engage or not engage, but we kept communicating. We kept offering performances they could observe, they could watch. We actually added more classes and workshops for youth and adults offered online throughout the Pandemic. We did more work that was invested in the community. We launched something called Syracuse Stories that partnered with local nonprofits, and we'd film in the theater conversations that were tied to the work on our stage or in the filmed productions. We actually produced a local writers project that had been seen at a small, culturally specific black theater in town. We put it on our main stage as the opener. The first thing we actually did when we came back that wasn't on the subscription season was this play, a gathering Place, that brought local stories into the fore. So I think there are a couple of key choices we made to continue to engage not only staff, but the community at large.
[00:31:22.250] - Jill Anderson
And I think those investments are really where we're seeing payoff.
[00:31:24.950] - Jill Robinson
Accelerator down. That's what I hear in that story. Now, listeners are going to say, okay, great, you had the funding and the fuel, right?
[00:31:33.330] - Jill Anderson
We did.
[00:31:34.130] - Jill Robinson
Vincent didn't. And what we're going to hear is accelerator down is a thing. So Vincent, talk about your version of.
[00:31:47.650] - Vincent Van Vliet
Did, and obviously Jill knows this because she let it. But we dug in during those darkest days and started a strategic planning process of all things we were up for. Our plan was expiring anyways with our centennial, and we decided to go full speed ahead with our planning because we knew that this too shall pass, and we knew the pandemic would pass at some point, and we wanted to be prepared coming out on the other side. So we spent a great deal of time while we were setting up for the outdoor stage also doing strategic planning. I would say this too, I would back up Pre COVID. We had made a substantial investment in a new customer service model and really took this idea of the nonprofit arts business model seriously. And we redesigned how our whole staff is laid out and kind of upended the traditional silos of marketing and development and built an account servicing, for lack of a better way to frame it, account servicing model with our staff and assigned key people to key benchmarks within the customer relationship journey. And we can talk a little bit more about that, but I could have never known then how that would pay off, both during COVID With the cancelations, the rescheduling, the moving people around, moving their seats around, reopening outdoors, reopening indoors, like that arc of time.
[00:33:26.210] - Vincent Van Vliet
Our ability to communicate one to one with our subscribers and donors made all the difference in the world because of the staffing model that we had created pre COVID. About three years before COVID started. And that became a real blessing because it kind of got us over that hump of all of those difficult customer conversations, because the patrons were having conversations with somebody they knew who had already been in communication with them one to one for three years. So they were willing to give our staff more grace in their frustration with all of the change that just kept rolling out throughout those tricky years.
[00:34:11.150] - Jill Robinson
Your staff, I think did you maintain staffing levels cut?
[00:34:15.330] - Vincent Van Vliet
We maintained staffing levels and added staff. Actually, we kind of doubled down in some key areas. Knowing that we needed to hang on to renewal rates and grow our conversion rate because we were keenly aware that there was going to be a percentage of people that were never going to come back into a venue. Into a live venue with a group of people again, either because of COVID and they were scared they were going to move away or they got into other things. We anticipated both in our budgeting and in the reality that people would not come back. And that proved to be true. We have about 17% of our audience that has disengaged with the organization since before COVID Joe, what's your number?
[00:35:00.750] - Jill Robinson
Do you know?
[00:35:01.310] - Jill Anderson
Ish overall attendance is still down about 30% in the combination of subs and singles. But I think, like Vincent, you recognize that, right? Folks whose kids have moved them closer, folks who literally don't drive at night anymore. Some of those things that we can overcome and some we can't. So the investment now is all about acquisition and bringing new folks into the building who will succeed those folks. And we've been working on that for years. And to be honest, we're still projecting substantial deficit this year. We've been able to retain a significant chunk of federal relief dollars that will allow us to fund deficits like that for this year, next year, maybe one more year, while we do all of this deep work on identity where we're headed, and rebuilding that database and reconnecting to even more people in the community.
[00:35:55.540] - Jill Robinson
Yeah. Okay.
[00:35:56.280] - Jill Anderson
Again, having the university provide about 28% of our overall budget is an advantage. Having that federal relief come in over the last few years is an advantage. But those are not necessarily always going to be exactly at those ratios. We know the federal relief is not likely to return, so we've bought ourselves time, but we don't think we're particularly immune from any of the challenges facing other folks as well.
[00:36:20.730] - Jill Robinson
Okay, so let's do a summary then, a summary of where you are financially. You've just described that there are bunkers, sort of financial bunkers that you've got at Syracuse Stage. I'm going to come back to how you are acting to counter or to ensure a positive future, because I know you believe that.
[00:36:49.990] - Jill Anderson
Jill, we have finished six of the last seven years in surplus, tiny or significant.
[00:36:55.580] - Jill Robinson
Okay.
[00:36:56.100] - Jill Anderson
And so we go into 24 with about a million dollars of accumulated surplus available to us as cash and an additional quarter million dollars that we set aside over the years, calling it the Innovation Fund, which we've never tapped. But the idea was it would provide, basically internal venture capital if we wanted to try some new things. So we have those resources. The budget we have approved for the year, we're going into projects about a $400,000 deficit. Simple math, right? We could do three years at that level of deficit and then have exhausted the cash on hand. We projected a $500,000 deficit in FY 23 and finished in balance, not through strictly dumb luck. I think we did some things right along the way, including receipt of the employee retention tax credit, which we hadn't forecast. So we do come in with a little bit of a resource pool that we can use, but we have a unique opportunity now. It's a 50th anniversary year, so what kind of amped up fundraising can we embark upon as part of that? Something else we're very proud of is that we've just secured the largest gift in the history of the organization and a that is its own good thing, but that it is specifically being used to fund new play work on an ongoing basis.
[00:38:18.230] - Jill Anderson
So where so many other organizations have been forced to or have chosen to scale back new play activity, we actually are investing in it more deeply, which is thrilling for us as a staff and I think holds a lot of promise for our community.
[00:38:32.640] - Jill Robinson
So in this I hear, look, we were successful in the nonprofit model relatively heading into the pandemic. We had surpluses and we built in reserves, and so we came into this and we also had the benefit of tax incentives like everyone did. And there are realities right now, there are realities about costs and other things that we know and audiences and other things, investments that we need to make. We're clear eyed about that, planning around that and feel relatively optimistic. I'm putting words in your mouth because I want to characterize a narrative here that's clear. These aren't two leaders we're going to get to you, Vincent, for sure, but these aren't two situations where it's like, oh, we got this all sorted. Not remotely, but it's also like it's not a narrative that says the sky is falling and we're about ready to close either. And so that's a really important thing, I think, for people to hear Vincent describe from a business standpoint how the Phoenix Theater has evolved over this time.
[00:39:47.530] - Vincent Van Vliet
Yeah, I would characterize our situation as the largest economic boom in our 104 year history. It's been really amazing, and I think part of it is also backing up. We were in the middle of a capital campaign as part of our centennial to build our new building that's breaking ground actually, in just a few weeks here. And so there was a lot of momentum both around the centennial and around the capital campaign. And then, of course, COVID happened. So there was this kind of interruptus. We did strategic planning during COVID We opened Outdoor Stage, then we reopened as a company, and all of that kind of energy had stuck. Right. It was still palpable. People were really excited about not just reopening, but getting the project completed and of course costs escalated and supply chain issues and all kinds of stuff with the building. And of course, the building price went up $10 million on us, which was a heck of a surprise, but we have been able to raise the dollars from a capital perspective to get the building back on track. And as I said, we're going to break ground in two weeks on a $30 million expansion to build our new 500 seat theater.
[00:41:11.050] - Vincent Van Vliet
And from an operating perspective, I would say we had also built into our model that because one of our theaters was going to be dark while it was being converted to the 500 seat theater, and we were going to have to perform in 100 seat theater that was going to affect us. And so we built into our capital campaign the ability to offset some of those inevitable losses so we wouldn't have to reduce staff and step off the accelerator. So the part of our capital campaign is fueling our operating budget, apples to apples. I would say we are about $400,000 off where we wanted to land on the operating budget for the fiscal year that we're wrapping up at the end of this month. We've got some things out there yet that may solve that, and we've got another month to do so. But I'm anticipating we're going to be somewhere between 200 and $400,000 off the mark. But we have ample cash on hand because we have the capital campaign. We have all of these grant dollars that came in to support that and to support the operation. So we financially are in better shape post COVID than we were going into COVID.
[00:42:23.070] - Jill Robinson
So the narrative between you is different. A centennial is a thing, right? A university is a thing. You're both describing positive operating results and some surprises that are not. So not everything is meeting plan. But I am talking to two leaders of two theater organizations who are not feeling like, nor acting like their organization is in crisis. And I have, like you been in conversations about this sector and what is fueling relative recovery or real recovery. And one of those that I'd love to get your thoughts on and we've talked about it a little bit, but I want to dive in a bit more deeply is the concept of the customer and the database as fuel and engine. And one of the observations that I've made as we've looked at different genres of art forms and their relative recovery is that performing arts centers recovered faster than all the other sectors that we've studied. Of the four majors that we've studied, and they simply work. They have big buildings and they were able to open more quickly with fewer people on stage. And even when we were selling to 25 or 50% of capacity, they just have more seats to sell.
[00:43:55.370] - Jill Robinson
You all described your relative reopening quickly, the concept of not only reopening, but investing in the relationship and keeping the fires, the furnaces burning with audiences and patrons, donors and customers. Whichever one of you, I'm calling on you just to keep order, but to talk about how you viewed the customer and your database as an engine of life for your organization and what that translated to during the pandemic. Jill, just talk about your orientation to that.
[00:44:40.200] - Jill Anderson
Sure. Again because we had content throughout. It gave us reasons that didn't have to be invented to continue to be in touch with people throughout, but up to and including communicating with folks who had held tickets or subscriptions for the second half of the 2020 that never materialized and communicating with them pretty regularly about where we were when we thought we were going to postpone a show and bring it back, and ultimately asking those folks to consider converting their ticket value and subscription. Value to donation or using it as store credit or having a refund and being broadly transparent about all of those options all along the way, I think, helped us immensely. But I think since we've reopened particularly because we've had to shut down a couple of times we've actually shifted that policy and I'm wondering from database a little bit to talk about relationship and instead of going back to the same people for the fourth 5th time to say oopsie, canceled again, would you like a refund? Would you like to turn that into credit? Or would you like that to be a donation? We're automatically making that a refund and letting folks make their own choices.
[00:45:58.050] - Jill Anderson
We don't love our CRM, I won't name it publicly, but it has some challenges in tracking all of those refunds, credits, exchanges, donations and so that was an investment in using our staff time better the folks who manage the database, but also keeping those relationships in a place that we felt really good about ethically. Now we've had so many new to file people come in the last, particularly in the year that we've just concluded that the opportunity to really grow those folks and steward those folks into returns this year is terrific. We've also had some trustees and volunteers offer to host events, thanking and cultivating folks by zip code in their own neighborhoods. It feels like a Tupperware party from days of your in a way we haven't done before. So next week we have a party with 80 people, half of whom aren't known to Bob and me yet, but they are people who were in the database who said yes to an invitation and being sure to continue to make those invitations has been key for us.
[00:47:05.050] - Jill Robinson
As Vincent. I know. Please speak to your orientation to don't.
[00:47:13.230] - Vincent Van Vliet
Even I'm not quite sure where to begin because there's so much material there, but we've prioritized customer relationships and retention for quite some time dating back to the work that we did with you, Jill, on NPS and we've continued that work. It stopped during COVID when there was a lot of things going on, but the minute we moved back indoors, we re implemented the NPS protocol. So we are continually surveying our audiences about their experience with the organization and following up. And to this day there's built in staffing around who responds. Nines and Tens go to the fundraising office to be followed up with to see if they want to become donors. Everything less is divided out amongst who wants to handle if there was a customer service issue that we want to follow up with. So those relationships have been prioritized. I think building on that is the new customer service model that I talked about. We have systems that are in place around new to file folks that are coming in. Gloria on our team handles every single one of those folks and she calls every single one of them and immediately makes a special offer to get them into a second and or third show by reducing the price on the ticket that they just paid to put them in a small package.
[00:48:39.670] - Vincent Van Vliet
And she does on her own. She generates a million dollars in business annually from those upgrades. We have Lauren, who's the next level, who is year two, her sole job. All she does all day, every day is take those folks that don't even recognize themselves as a multi ticket buyer or a subscriber under our definition. Her job is to renew them. That's all she does is to get them into another package for one more year to help with that generate loyalty, like help grow roots to the organization. So she starts scheduling backstage tours so they start to get these little perks and learn more about the company. And then by year three they're moved up to the full patron concierge team that then takes care of them in the same way and more benefits are added. That kind of layered approach where each of those team members is both responsible for their ticket behavior but also turning them into donors, whether it's small gifts at first and then moving them up the continuum, they are responsible for both things. They are both fundraisers and customer service agents for helping them with whatever they need.
[00:49:56.560] - Jill Robinson
One of the most provoking conversations that we're having right now in the field that we've had for a long time, but it's really getting a different kind of attention and I'm curious about your point of view of it, is that the subscription is not going to be part of the future and that different.
[00:50:25.130] - Vincent Van Vliet
I don't mean to laugh, it's just laughable. It's insane to me when the subscription model has been around for a really long time and corporate America is completely taking over the subscription model from us while we're talking about the death of it. It's insane to me that anyone thinks that it's dead now. That doesn't mean that it hasn't changed. How people traffic in subscription has definitely changed. And so we have to meet the moment, right? So our packages need to look different. Seated real estate, as it used to be seen, isn't that attractive maybe to everybody anymore, but flexibility is. And while everybody's probably implemented a flex program, that might not be enough. You might have to go a step further. Like our all access pass that we put in place before COVID and now has taken off like wildfire. It's just people traffic in deciding to take in a cultural something differently than they did, and they plan less now. And so we need packages that accommodate them and meet them where they are.
[00:51:39.280] - Jill Robinson
I would say we talk a lot about recency frequency, monetary and growth, as you both know, and this question about that or not recency pardon? This question about frequency and managing toward frequency as people are coming into the field, because it's true, Jill, your situation is represented the benchmark too. The lion's share of audiences today are new audiences. And so the question that you both are planning for staffing about interested in as leaders is how do we invite them back? I've heard it from both of you. Okay, one more question before I move to wrap us up, and that's about philanthropy. We're seeing big philanthropic shifts in arts and culture. Lots of reasons. Younger generations are interested in different standards of giving, ways of giving, maybe areas of giving. Arts and culture has suffered a bit during this pandemic in terms of national philanthropic trends and in theater. Everyone's seen a little bit of a SAG here in 2023, but theater has been hit hard. What are you experiencing, Vincent, in your philanthropic arena in Phoenix? For the theater company?
[00:53:04.800] - Vincent Van Vliet
Yeah. Our donor base as well as size of gifts continues to grow. We've not seen the lag now. People might be pointing their gifts in different directions, let's say. So they might have been giving to operating, and they might split that between capital and operating. But overall, philanthropy has not gone down for us. I would say that during the pandemic and ricocheting off of it, we've seen lower foundation support as those foundations have pivoted their missions to play in different nonprofit spaces. And there's a little bit of that happening in the corporate sector too, as they kind of point their philanthropic dollars differently. But we have more than made up for it in either new foundations, new corporations, or new individuals coming into the organization and supporting us.
[00:54:03.410] - Jill Robinson
Why is that, do you think? Why?
[00:54:06.030] - Vincent Van Vliet
Again, I think it goes back to the customer service model that we've put in place where we are actually having the conversations with our donors in an ongoing communication. It has to do with the way we do our VIP receptions now for opening nights and board members inviting people, acting as ambassadors to the organization, and they're bringing in people they feel like could become donors. And so it's a way to introduce them to theater. So we've found a way to create a pipeline, really, that funnels people into the organization. And then, of course, our gala is always a significant community event that brings in new people to the organization, introduces them, and we have this kind of weird dynamic where we've got a group of people who become donors before they become patrons, and we have to work extra hard to actually get them to come see a show.
[00:55:00.930] - Jill Robinson
All kinds of decisions that you all are making as leaders, and I think that's how I want to wrap up the Phoenix Theater Company. Has the pandemic affected the vision that you and your board, your artistic partner have for the company? Has it changed that vision?
[00:55:28.080] - Vincent Van Vliet
Yeah, it has not changed the vision for the company, but it has galvanized people to finally believe it can happen. Jill, you were in those early rhythm sessions when we first brought up building a new theater and doing pre Broadway work if that's what we decide that we want to do. And the panic from the staff and the disbelief and not even wanting to have the conversation because they didn't think it was real or could happen, and fast forward this many years later and it's happening. And I think it's created a real belief that together we can do things bigger than ourselves, and that's really taken hold staff and board for us.
[00:56:14.070] - Jill Robinson
Thank you for the time, taking the time with me to share your stories, and I wish you both fantastic wrap ups to your summertime, and we at TRG look forward to being your continued partners in any ways and always. So we'll sign off here. Thanks so much, Jill. Vincent.
[00:56:39.310] - TRG Arts
That's all for this episode of Leading the way with Jill S. Robinson. Brought to you by TRG Arts. Thanks for listening and believing that insightful, daring, and innovative leadership is the way to a more resilient future for the arts and cultural industry. Make sure to subscribe to Leading the Way on Apple podcasts and Spotify. And if you found this episode helpful, please rate and review the show for additional resources. And to sign up for the podcast newsletter, we invite you to visit our website at leadingthewaypodcast.com.