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Breaking: Shakespeare & Company crisis

E-mail|Link|Comments () Posted by Geoff Edgers October 13, 2009 02:33 PM

Shakespeare & Company, central to the artistic life of the Berkshires for more than three decades, is facing a cash crunch so severe it would need to raise $2.3 million just to survive until next March and could be unable to meet its payroll as soon as this month, according to a report released today.

Leaders of the Lenox-based company acknowledged the crisis after the release of a 37-page report from the Nonprofit Finance Fund, a service agency that examined Shakespeare & Company financial books and laid out a stark picture of the organization. It is saddled in debt and has built up an accumulated deficit of $4.75 million over the last five years.

The organization’s liabilities now exceed its assets by a ratio of almost seven to one, according to the report.

But Shakespeare & Company's leaders, who had requested the report to establish a baseline to help them develop a recovery plan, said they don't expect the organization to close and have already put in place cost-cutting measures to keep it alive.

"The way the report is structured today is that if we do nothing then these are the bad things that will happen," said Tony Simotes, the company's artistic director. "I couldn’t agree more. The good news is that we are not only not doing nothing but we’ve already put some changes in place, many of which this report suggests and others which will come down the road."

These changes include a staff cuts, a hiring freeze and performance schedule shifts that will cut down on days the theater needs to be closed during its prime summer season. The company is also in talks to restructure its nearly $8 million in loans with Century Bank of Medford.