Watertown theater takes closing bow after 40 seasons

Native Information

The New Repertory Theatre in Watertown is shutting its doorways after a number of current years of monetary hardship. 

Cailan Doran and Dylan C. Wack in “The Regular Coronary heart” at New Repertory Theatre.

The New Repertory Theatre in Watertown is completely closing after 40 seasons on account of financial challenges following the pandemic.  

“It’s a little bit of the frog within the boiling pot, the place we’ve been regularly developing so far. It’s at all times a problem to place the puzzle items collectively, and then you definately add in all of the various factors during the last couple of years, [and] it’s actually swimming upstream to get to sustainability,” stated New Rep Board Chair Chris Jones informed WBUR. 

In 2021 the theater confronted a tough determination on account of monetary losses from the pandemic and paused its operations, Jones stated in a press release.

Nonetheless, after a nine-month hiatus, the theater produced a full-fledged season in 2023, with exhibits akin to “The Regular Coronary heart,” “A Raisin within the Solar,” and the world premiere of a brand new work titled “DIASPORA!”

Jones informed WBUR that though ticket gross sales have been encouraging, the price of producing these works prices the theater a whole lot of 1000’s of {dollars}. Cash from ticket gross sales simply isn’t fairly sufficient when there isn’t a powerful turnout of philanthropic donors. 

New Rep Resident Artist Maria Hendricks informed WBUR that donors wish to see the success of the season so as to produce funding to assist the season, creating a niche between potential and precise earnings for the theater.

The theater was additionally dedicated to providing all its artists and staff a dwelling wage following 2020’s nationwide dialog surrounding race and fairness. 

“That’s not a mannequin that existed, essentially, the place each particular person employed by a theater was in a position to stay on what they have been making on the theater, and that’s one thing that we have been aspiring to. That may have additionally impacted the quantity we wanted to maintain ourselves shifting ahead,” New Rep Board Vice Chair Danielle Galligan informed WBUR.

After the New Rep leaves its publish on the Mosesian Middle for the Arts, Galligan informed WBUR she hopes a brand new group of theater of us will make use of the black field theater this group as soon as known as their dwelling.