After weeks of hand-wringing and clandestine bitching, Seattle theater artists finally got a chance to grill the board of directors of Seattle Fringe Theatre Productions (SFTP), producer of the annual Seattle Fringe Theatre Festival.
Last Tuesday, December 2, the board sat onstage at ACT Theatre to deliver a much-needed mea culpa and field questions about SFTP's financial crisis and failure to pay artists from this year's Fringe. To date, participating theater companies have only received 10 percent of their ticket-sales earnings.
SFTP currently owes $58,000 to artists, $40,000 to other creditors, and has $21,000 in the bank. The board is also negotiating with an anonymous donor who might put several thousand dollars toward paying artists. The "Christmas angel" will release the funds only if SFTP can propose a payment plan that is acceptable to the holders of 85 percent of the aggregate debt.
The board outlined three possible payment options still under debate. SFTP could: (1) liquidate all of its assets, permanently close, and immediately pay everyone 25 percent of their current earnings; (2) pay artists 60 percent of what they're owed in quarterly payments over one year; or (3) pay artists 100 percent of what they're owed, with four percent interest, in quarterly payments over two years.
"All three options suck, but I vastly prefer the third choice," said Richard Harrington, half of the New York duo that brought Nharcolepsy to the 2003 festival. "I have talked to a lot of out-of-towners," he said. "Not one of them is even considering returning to the Seattle Fringe."
The debt, like most debts, is the result of bad luck and bad decisions. Fate cursed the festival with slashed grant budgets, ballooning insurance costs, and a stumbling economy. Two years ago, the board moved the festival from March to September to coordinate with the North American fringe circuit. The move successfully attracted international acts and raised the festival's artistic bar, but cost $7,000 in ticket sales each year.
The board was unable to detect and respond to the problems in time (and, to be fair, some current board members are too new to have caused the crisis). While funding and audiences withered, SFTP actually grew, adding staff and events--like FringeACT--that it couldn't afford. In 2003, new ticket-office procedures failed to record sales figures. "We didn't get full, accurate income reports every day, and we didn't keep track of credit-card deposits," said board member Ken Bailes. Based on bad projections of grant income and bad tracking of ticket income, the Fringe overspent.
Throughout Tuesday's meeting, the board expressed deep regret and dismay at having failed its participants, but said it didn't understand the magnitude of the problem until after the latest festival. "I would never have signed a contract if I thought we'd be having this meeting today," said executive director Andrew Haines, who has decided to work without pay.
"Our only intent was to have great art," said board president R. David Persson. "We do this because we love you--we do this because we love the art."
