One night in early June of 2014, a wave of bad news broke over a meeting of people assembled at Vito’s Restaurant and Lounge. Vito’s is a renovated old lounge, the kind of place where Frank Sinatra would have hung out, minus the smoke. Red leather booths. Gold-flecked mirrors. Lighting the color of beer.
This meeting was a shoptalk session for the heads of midsize Seattle arts groups who sometimes get together under the silly nickname Administroni. They represent different art forms, from dance and literature to photography and film, but what they have in common is that they’re all go-to venues for culture in the city, and all beneficiaries of the steady philanthropy of the billionaire Paul Allen.
“We got some bad news today,” one of the administrators said to the group.
To everyone’s surprise, they quickly realized they’d all gotten the same bad news…
