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Friday, April 14, 2023
Oregon Shakespeare Festival says it needs $2.5 million to save its season
oregonlive.com: The Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced a campaign Tuesday to raise $2.5 million to “save” the season set to begin later this month and said it was suspending its planning for 2024 as it seeks to stabilize its finances.
2 comments:
Carolyn Burback
said...
I’ve heard a lot about the Shakespeare Oregon Festival and it is unfortunate to hear they are having to cancel performances and even threaten not being able to go through with its season due to a financial crunch. While it’s unfortunate in itself that finances are tight I can see why with the pandemic creating a massive loss for 2-3 years and climate crisis events. I know Oregon was hit very hard with the annual summer/fall wildfires that tear through the west coast. I feel bad for the workers who are taking double positions and being worked extra hard to compensate for the large number of people laid off over the past three years and can’t be replaced until they have the funds to pay new employees again. Hopefully the Bill that would give the festival $5.1 million goes through, but as the end of the article pointed out there are a lot of other things to draw tourists to Oregon for outside of the theatrical arts.
I hope the Oregon Shakespeare Festival can raise the $2.5 million they need to continue their season, but unfortunately it seems to me to be a really long shot. I remember writing a comment about Nataki Garrett and the death threats she received last October. I’m surprised that I didn’t hear about any of these other issues since then – it’s strange that they’re surfacing now, and that OSF waited until now to start asking for so much money. I find it surprising that a group as big as OSF can have so many underlying problems that go undetected for so long. How is a financial system “antiquated” and not properly maintained, even? When I read that, I imagined they were using an abacus to record their expenses. Particularly given the direction that Garrett wants to take OSF in, I hope that it can recover from this situation, but things don’t sound good for it right now.
2 comments:
I’ve heard a lot about the Shakespeare Oregon Festival and it is unfortunate to hear they are having to cancel performances and even threaten not being able to go through with its season due to a financial crunch. While it’s unfortunate in itself that finances are tight I can see why with the pandemic creating a massive loss for 2-3 years and climate crisis events. I know Oregon was hit very hard with the annual summer/fall wildfires that tear through the west coast. I feel bad for the workers who are taking double positions and being worked extra hard to compensate for the large number of people laid off over the past three years and can’t be replaced until they have the funds to pay new employees again. Hopefully the Bill that would give the festival $5.1 million goes through, but as the end of the article pointed out there are a lot of other things to draw tourists to Oregon for outside of the theatrical arts.
I hope the Oregon Shakespeare Festival can raise the $2.5 million they need to continue their season, but unfortunately it seems to me to be a really long shot. I remember writing a comment about Nataki Garrett and the death threats she received last October. I’m surprised that I didn’t hear about any of these other issues since then – it’s strange that they’re surfacing now, and that OSF waited until now to start asking for so much money. I find it surprising that a group as big as OSF can have so many underlying problems that go undetected for so long. How is a financial system “antiquated” and not properly maintained, even? When I read that, I imagined they were using an abacus to record their expenses. Particularly given the direction that Garrett wants to take OSF in, I hope that it can recover from this situation, but things don’t sound good for it right now.
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