Trinity Repertory Co. “got religion just in time,” according to Managing Director William Wingate.
Trinity, like so many other regional theater companies in the mid-1980s, found itself struggling after the Ford Foundation decided not to support local theater with grant money, Wingate explained. The theater company had long relied on those funds to keep going, and had not put much effort into building a strong local donor base or tightening its budget.
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Some theaters, such as Stage West in Springfield, Mass., weren’t so lucky and went dark permanently.
“Very few of us developed the relationships with the local communities to the extent we needed to,” Wingate said. “Virtually none of us was prepared for that.
“The administration here at the time didn’t heed the red flags early enough,” he said. “Not so bad that they closed down, like Stage West. In my view, Trinity got religion at just the right time.”
Wingate has 30 years experience in arts management and joined Trinity last April. He spent nearly 20 years working at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, one of the country’s largest regional theaters.
Now after about a decade of struggling, Trinity administrators said they have gained some credibility from the business community and other powerful benefactors. This is because both the business and creative sides of the house have been polishing their acts.
Evidence of this newfound respect: the three year $10 million fundraising campaign launched by Trinity’s board of directors last October. In January, just three months after they began publicly promoting the campaign, Trinity had raised $7.2 million, including $1 million pledged by the city of Providence. That’s more than 70 percent of its goal already.
To the theater administration’s pleasant surprise the business community has supported the campaign with generous donations. Fleet Bank and the Providence Journal Co. committed $500,000 each, and CVS donated $300,000. Members of the fundraising steering committee alone have donated $2.6 million, according to Steve Sorin, Trinity’s development director.
Commonwealth Development Group, which is building the Providence Place mall, donated between $5,000 and $10,000. Spokesman Michael Doyle said the developers did so for several reasons, including Trinity’s contribution to the local quality of life.
“That literally complements Providence Place. Providence Place, its success, is dependent on the ambient quality of the city being improved,” Doyle said. Existing attractions such as Trinity and newer developments, such as The Westin Hotel and Waterplace Park, “initially contributed to the developers looking at Providence. Keeping that going is also important,” he added.
Despite the fact Trinity needs a bit more money to finance some renovations to the theater building and perhaps even to acquire some new space in the city, the board was deliberately conservative, Sorin said. That’s because they didn’t want to turn off potential donors, who might deem a more ambitious campaign as “pie in the sky,” he added.
Plans call for about $1.5 million to pay off outstanding debts; $3.3 million for improvements to Lederer Theater; and the remaining money for operating support, including artistic and educational program expansion. At $750,000 replacing the lighting systems in both of the theaters at Trinity comprises the biggest theater improvement cost, according to Wingate.
Previously, he said, some people pumped money into Trinity because they didn’t want to see a theater that puts on local productions and, with 130 employees, serves as the state’s largest arts organization close. But now Sorin reports contributors’ attitudes are different.
“We’re not just supporting an institution that we don’t want to let die, we’re supporting an institution that breathes life into the community,” he said.
“I think there were a lot of skeptics in this community about this campaign before it started,” Wingate said.
But four-and-a-half years with Oskar Eustis as Trinity’s artistic director and work done on the business side of the house by Patricia Egan, who served as managing director from 1994 to 1998, has apparently begun to pay off. “It’s taken until quite recently to get rid of those conceptions about Trinity being profligate and misspending ,” Wingate said.
Trinity closed its 34th season on June 30, 1998, with a balanced budget. It was the second consecutive year it has done so.
By continuing its commitment as an educational institution and by “no longer wasting money,” Trinity has demonstrated to donors its fiscal and community responsibility, Wingate said. “They’ve always known it was something special artistically. Now they know it’s a good investment,” he added.
