Comments

1
Maybe this is the moment, maybe not. But one of the three has to go. We don't have the money or audience for all three of the big houses.
2
Well, we MIGHT @1 if there was anything to distinguish the Big 3 from each other. Granted, this is not an original idea, and I think ACT has made some strides to pull itself out of that pack since their close call a few years back, particularly with Central Heating Lab and opening their doors to smaller arts orgs, but "back in the day" they DID all have very distinct brand-identities. It wasn't until the mid-90's or so, when the financial landscape started to consolidate via corporate mergers, Boeing leaving town, dot-com money already starting to dry up, etc., etc., that ACT, Intiman & The Rep began to blur their programming to the point of being practically indistinguishable from each other.

And what would really hurt more than anything, would be the loss of several hundred living-wage jobs currently under Intiman's roof - for the administrators, technicians, designers, front-of-house staff, actors (not to mention the hundreds of other businesses that provide ancillary goods and services), yours isn't just an esoteric, abstract question: it's quite literally the difference between maintaining ones livelihood versus being thrown out onto the street.

And I can pretty much guarantee, IF Intiman does go under, those employees aren't going to be handed anything in the way of severance, or golden parachutes or what-not. It'll be fast and brutal and it's going to negatively impact EVERYONE in the community.

Some of these people are my friends, dammit, and although I've never been shy about criticizing those running the show over there, the absolute LAST thing I would ever wish on anyone working there is to suddenly NOT be.
3
What Comte said.

Plus, I'm on record as maintaining that the "We aren't rich enough big enough or cultured enough to maintain three LORTs" is a facile unfounded crock of shit.

http://www.paulmullin.org/just-wrought/2…
4
hopefully this isn't true, but if they ARE on shaky ground, maybe they'll pull their act together...their seasons have gotten very dull and academic the last couple of years. The Rep and ACT have the advantage of having multiple stages so they can market different shows towards different audiences, but poor ole Intiman only has the one stage. They need to mix it up a little.

and, Intiman has a rich board to draw upon...hopefully they can reach out to other richies to save Intiman. Steve Ballmer and Friends defeated the Income Tax...they have a lot of money to burn. Hit them up.
5
Maybe stop hiring expensive actors from New York all the time?
6
Mars Hill is pleased to announce that they're opening a new location...
7
The 2009 Form 990 shows an $80,000 net asset balance for Intiman, but a near $3M net fund balance for the Intiman Foundation. I bet they are okay.
8
@7:

But if I'm not mistaken these assets represent cash-on-hand, no? $80,000 in the bank for a company with an annual operational budget in excess of $5 mm doesn't seem like much to me, particularly when you consider they don't generate much in the way of revenue during the off-season, so that $80 K has to be able to cover rent, payroll, utilities and other expenses for the roughly three months they're presumably running their season subscription renewal campaign. But, as theatre administrators will tell you, subscription sales have plummeted for many non-profits in the past decade, as patrons shift more toward single-ticket purchases, which are generally made only a few weeks (at most) prior to performance dates, and which literally wreaks havoc on the org's cash-flow, budgeting projections, etc.

And the foundation asset balance represents the total amount available in the fund, which isn't anywhere close to the amount Intiman should be able to access. The foundation is there primarily to generate interest income from the principle, which is what Intiman SHOULD be drawing on, if needed. If they're withdrawing from the principle itself, which has been rumored, that would pretty much negate any benefit from having a stabilization fund in the first place.
9
The $80,000 is an accounting concept, not cash. They had about $300,000 in cash at 12/31/09 and $900,000 in grants receivable. This is low, but not unlike what other organizations have going on right now.

The fact that they are still producing shows and that they have a foundation reserve means they are not going out of business right now. They likely need to slash staff and other expenses, but they don't look like they are on the brink of closing.
10
This didn't happen overnight.... This explains why the top managment jumped shipped over the past 3 years. Like most of the companies in this country they will use the excuse of "its the poor economy". Make no mistake about it, its just "poor management" or lets say lack of management and responsbility. If you look at the financials of the Intiman over the past 6 years, you'll see the complete picture.
11
Well, it's the difference between their total assets minus their total liabilities, so not exactly stellar performance there, eh? Also, it's worth noting that, while Intiman had an $80,000 Net Asset Fund Balance at the end Fiscal Year 2008 (April 2009), they started the FY (May 2008) with almost $600,000 in that same column, so their NAFB actually plummeted 87% in a single 12 month period. That CAN'T be good, can it?

Additionally, while the Foundation took in three times the amount of contributions, grants & investment income in FY 2008 ($1,122,780 from May '08 through April '09, which is the period covered in the return I'm looking at) as they did in the previous FY ($347,308), they also withdrew from the fund nearly eight and a-half times as much as the previous FY ($573,000 versus $68,059 respectively). That CAN'T be good either, can it?

And I don't suppose it needs pointing out these numbers are now more than a year and a half old (hence it being filed as a 2008 return; which curiously Colburn apparently didn't submit until February 2010). Who knows what's occurred in the intervening 18 months? Do you?

So, unless you have access to information the rest of us don't, I don't think I'm going to be comforted - much as I wish I could be - by your assessment.
12
No offense to our good friend Brendan Kiley here, who at least made an attempt to ask the question, though he hasn't shared yet if he's followed up after 36 hours of silence, but where the hell is Misha Berson on this? Is she not a self-purported journalist at a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper?

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