The economic downturn has been felt at virtually every arts organization in America, but Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre Company has taken a bigger hit than most. As Producing Artistic Director Karyl Lynn Burns noted, Ventura isn’t home to a lot of corporate headquarters, and the big-pocket donors the company has found inhabit hard-hit sectors of the economy, such as real estate and banking.
During the past weeks, the company has been doing the difficult work of reconciling its ambitious artistic agenda with the reality of decreased donations. Under the direction of its new chief financial officer, Patricia Baldwin, it has cut its annual budget from $3.2 million to $1.8 million. This required revamping affects its current season, substituting smaller-cast shows for such planned productions as The Miracle Worker and The Tempest.
“I’m extremely confident that we can find good material that is affordable, and that we can continue to produce that material at the standard of quality we have in the past,” said Artistic Director James O’Neil. “I’m not disparaging one- or two- or three- or four-person shows. There are many good ones. But it’s also important to tell stories of scope. Hopefully this period [of austerity] will not last too long.”