By Kathleen McLaughlin, The IBJ
kmclaughlin@ibj.com
American Cabaret Theatre's announcement last week that it would move out of its longtime home at the Athenaeum on Massachusetts Avenue was more than two years in the making.
"We just flat ran out of cash," said Barbara Weaver Smith, the not-for-profit professional company's board president. "There is no alternative at this moment in time."
Money had been tight for awhile, but Smith said she realized the company's dire circumstances as she examined its finances on New Year's Eve, the day after former Executive Director Mark Kesling left for another job.
The theater made its name producing original, thematic revues using well-known songs. It occasionally attempted traditional Broadway musicals, including "The Full Monty" and "Victor/Victoria."
After several emergency meetings, the board of directors decided last week to cancel plans to stage the musical "Cabaret," move out of the Athenaeum - where it was paying $100,000 a year in rent - and lay off four of its six full-time employees. IBJ.com broke the news Jan. 23 in Lou Harry's A&E blog.
Smith said the downsizing could have come sooner, but American Cabaret kept hoping to find a business model that would justify its use of the 350-seat theater. Just last summer, it won a $250,000 grant from the Lilly Endowment for new lighting and renovations. Most of the money remains unspent.
Meanwhile, the Athenaeum Foundation is in talks with several performing arts groups, one of which could convert the cabaret's nightclub setup to traditional theater seating and accommodate 700 to 1,000 people, foundation President Cassie Stockman said. American Cabaret has been at the Athenaeum without a lease since November 2006.
"We're so sad to see the ACT leave," she said.
Still, Stockman is excited about the foundation's opportunity to bring in more revenue and lower its own fund-raising burden. She noted that the theater space was in use just 21 percent of the time last year. "For a theater of that size, that's underutilized," she said.
The foundation and its tenant, the Rathskellar restaurant, share revenue from all bar sales on the Athenaeum premises. Although American Cabaret never enjoyed a cut, Stockman said that benefit wouldn't be out of the question for any production that can pump up attendance, and therefore sales.
American Cabaret had been in residence at the historic German-American club since 1990. Smith said the trouble began several years ago, when the Athenaeum Foundation could no longer afford to subsidize the company's presence.
The theater was routinely drawing audiences of 100 or fewer to each performance, Smith said. What's more, it was producing shows with more than a dozen paid actors and singers-plus royalties and other production expenses. Last summer's "The Wiz," for example, cost $60,000, she said.
The theater poured donated money into operational debts, some of which have been covered by a $125,000 line of credit from National Bank of Indianapolis. "We have bills, which we fully intend to pay," Smith said.
Smith, who was appointed board president in November, said board members and Kesling, who had been on the job for about a year, were struggling to set up an accounting system that showed the true cost of the theater's productions.
Smith didn't realize until after Kesling left that the Christmas show lost money, despite drawing healthy crowds.
In theory, American Cabaret would have a balanced budget in 2009, Smith said, but there was no cash with which to start the year.
American Cabaret isn't folding just yet. Smith said the board and other supporters scraped together enough cash to keep going until March. By then, Smith said, the hope is to find a suitable venue for a new series of shows with very low production costs.
That means focusing on the "cabaret" of its name. The format requires little but a talented singer, one or more musicians, and a microphone.
Shannon Forsell, who was hired last fall to develop a "signature" series of cabaret shows for the theater, will continue as managing director. A torch singer who appeared in American Cabaret productions for 10 years, she also was scheduled to appear in the kick-off show, "Cabaret and Cabernet."
"We have many friends of ACT who want to see this through, and like the idea of the smaller, more intimate cabaret series," Smith said. "We're not just whistling Dixie. We really do believe we can do it."