As nonprofit theaters around the country grapple with continuing financial troubles and a changed post-pandemic theatergoing landscape, Seattle Rep announced this week that it would lay off 12 percent of its employees.
The move by Seattle Rep, the city’s pre-eminent repertory theater, underscores the painful calculus that nonprofit theaters across the industry are facing. As the financial crisis in regional theaters continues, many have pared down programming or shaved costs by relying on co-productions with other theaters.
The theater says it is cutting administrative roles to prioritize production. It is cutting its head count from 108 to 95, a net loss of 13 full-time jobs.
“There has to be some sort of action in response to what’s happening in the field,” said the theater’s artistic director, Dámaso Rodríguez. “Some folks suspend production for a while. That’s not the approach we’re taking.”
The theater, founded in 1963, has a storied history. It helped start Richard Gere’s professional acting career when he was 19, was home to the original workshop production of Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer-winning play “The Heidi Chronicles” and saw the first reading of Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner’s “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.”
But like many theaters, Seattle Rep is facing financial challenges. It has lost more than half of its subscribers — who buy tickets for multiple shows at a time — since the pandemic began. It is expected to report a $335,000 deficit on a $16 million budget when its current fiscal year ends this month. Rodríguez said the newly announced cuts were part of a three-year plan to better position the theater for the future.
As part of that plan, the theater will emphasize creating its own shows over tours and co-productions. Six out of the next season’s seven shows will be built in house, up from last season, when only four of the eight shows originated at the theater. (Before the pandemic, the theater typically presented eight or nine productions a season, with only a few outside productions.)
To make this change work, the theater’s technical crews and shops will be put on seasonal contracts, instead of working on a project-by-project basis as they had been.
Once the cuts fully take effect in the coming months, the theater’s traditional creative producing team will be significantly reduced. Its artistic staff will drop from what had been a five-person team to one person: Rodríguez, who started at the theater in 2023. But the theater will be bringing on other staff members, including apprentices, contractors and a newly created role of artistic programs manager, to contribute to that work.
“We have to be forward-thinking,” Rodríguez said. “We have to be passionate about the work, we have to invest in the work. And we are also making choices that are disappointing and hard.”
Seattle Rep is also scaling back some programs, including its new play development program and Public Works, which invited members of the community to act in shows.
But some of that work will continue in other ways. A community ensemble will appear in an upcoming production of Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth,” and next season’s budget has funds earmarked for three to four new play workshops.
The challenge, Rodríguez said, is in figuring out how Seattle Rep’s programs can have more sustainable business models as nonprofit theaters struggle. He said that he was optimistic about the future, but that it was a realistic optimism.
“We’re not betting on growth,” he said. “We’re recommitting to the value proposition of coming to the theater.”