Here's how former employees rate Oregon Shakes as a place to work as posted on glassdoor.com: "Oregon Shakespeare Festival has an overall rating of 1.8 out of 5, based on over 39 reviews left anonymously by employees. 8% of employees would recommend working at Oregon Shakespeare Festival to a friend and 4% have a positive outlook for the business. This rating has decreased by -48% over the last 12 months. Employees also rated Oregon Shakespeare Festival 1.5 out of 5 for work life balance, 1.9 for culture and values and 2.4 for career opportunities.
Some of their comments:
1 Burn out galore, no communication, hollow requests for ideas
The salary ranges are beyond ridiculous. Some people who have worked here for decades make below where they should be, while members of the senior leadership team make near or over $200K.
2 Was valued, until I wasn't.
The administration is more focused on politics than theatre or storytelling. They are systematically tearing down institutional history in favor of creating a new narrative. However, we need to understand history if we are going to build a new future.
3 The Worst Place I Have Ever Worked
From the sexual harassment to bullying to going against the "vision" to fiscal mismanagement to feeding people to the board to funneling money to inflate egos... it's all true. OSF needs to be reborn with competent people at the top. … I hope everyone comes to know the truth about what has been going on at OSF because everything that is being sold to the media is also a lie.
4 Used to love it here, now can't wait to leave.
The organization has had a pretty hard time since the start of the pandemic, as have most arts orgs. But OSF hasn't bounced back the way other orgs have. Leadership has burned their bridges with the community and alienated most of its donors through a series of ridiculously bad calls:
Gutting the industry-leading education program.
Eliminating the membership program and revoking most of the benefits of being a donor while expecting people to continue giving out of the goodness of their hearts.
Kicking an 80+ year old volunteer organization out of its role running the gift shop (so now no gift shop generating revenue and hundreds of angry former volunteers and donors).
Cutting the number of shows in half and expecting ticket sales to not drop catastrophically.
Sinking millions into vanity digital projects with no ROI, some of which look like they were made by highs school students.
Social media and PR contractors who work to burnish the reputation of one person instead of the company.
Hiring contractors from among a small, favored list, with outrageous pay and no controls on costs or firm list of deliverables.
Ignoring or firing long-term professionals because their professional opinion doesn't align with the aspirational goals of management.
Outright lying to the board of directors on financial forecasts to make them think vanity projects can bring in enough revenue to support themselves.
Firing or driving out competent leaders and hiring replacements without the skill and experience to do the job and paying them more to do less.
Ego, ego, and more ego.
It's sad to see a once-great organization broken like this. COVID certainly did its part to ruin the place. Inept executive leadership with a one-size-fits-all big city mentality it tried to force onto a small town didn't help. Artistic leadership that goes around saying things like "these white people think the purpose of theater is to be entertained" and "we used to be Shakespeare summer camp for rich old white ladies" and having programmed the three most depressing seasons of theater in the organization's history in a time when the whole world was just looking for a little joy drove the nail into the coffin.
Advice to Management
Find a strong business-minded Executive Director who will remember that the purpose of the organization is to produce shows people want to see, at a sustainable price.
Stop the disastrous and costly experiments with VR and go back to the roots of producing quality live theater (and film it for broader distribution).
Build a functioning finance department that can pay bills on time.
5 To quote Shakespeare: "Hell is empty and all the devils are here"
Artistic and current leadership can be great artists, but are convinced they can do the administrative and business side of operations and, as evidenced by all of my former colleagues reviews here, obviously cannot. They demand respect but refuse to respect anyone else’s expertise in their fields or professions. The amount of time and energy spent trying to do our jobs while having to carefully tiptoe around wild narcissism and egos was unmatched and exhausting. Leadership has no understanding of people’s jobs outside of their Artistic department, and thus continuously led to poor staffing decisions including nonsensical layoffs, stolen ideas, and interdepartmental strain. Gaslighting and retaliation against speaking up was a huge issue, and one I personally was affected by along with many of my colleagues. Training in systems is nearly non-existent. People let go without warning and their colleagues forced to take up work they are not trained in was very common. Always understaffed and very high turnover. While I was very optimistic of the DEI work, it eventually means nothing when leadership, many of them BIPOC themselves, turn out to be toxic and abusive. So many instances of talk the talk, but not walk the walk. I could go on, but honestly they have already taken so much of my labor in ways I did not consent, that I am simply too tired to remember everything.
Advice to Management
Leave. Accept your implicit role in this organization’s last breath. Yes, there were already systematic issues, yes it was already in a downward trajectory before the COVID shutdown, but the horrific mismanagement of funds and staff over the last few years should be acknowledged and accountability taken – don’t you remember we had a whole series of DEI trainings on accountability? Or was that only to waste staff’s time? Unfortunately, Leadership and Artistic only speak hollow words and never once walked the path of OSF’s stated Mission and Values. Sad, as at least the rest of us tried. As for everyone outside the organization reading this: take any press release or media news relating to OSF with a grain of salt. Look at it with a critical eye. Because as staff and former staff who loved this organization and the work we were trying to do, we are tired of the lies.
Listen to and protect whistleblowers and people who bring credible claims of harassment and discrimination.
Invest in the Education program, which used to be one of OSF's Crown Jewels but has been denigrated by artistic leadership for the last several years even though it was a major source of pride (as well as new audiences and new donors) for decades. Just because you’ve spoken to people who attended once in high school and never came back doesn't mean that thousands of others haven't made a lifelong connection to the arts through that program - expand it instead of killing it.
Run leaner productions with fewer frills and less expensive sets to cut costs.
Stop wasting millions of dollars on expensive contractors and endless strategic planning.
Remember that you are a theater. Your job is to produce shows people want to see, then sell them tickets to see it.
6 A theatrical “omniverse” of toxic “paradigms” and abuse. The most dysfunctional org in American Theatre.
While I was there, there seemed to be a fear around reporting less than ideal working conditions to leadership especially if it was dissonant against the “vision” or anyone that was favored by the AD or ED. The fiscal mismanagement has existed for years now, and due to lack of leadership or backbone from the last ED, we continued to hemorrhage cash on superfluous staffing, digital and VR programming and other personal favors that have yielded little monetary returns which this org needs desperately. Many of these ideas came from the AD who had a strenuous relationship with the ED and ultimately fed him to the board. He didn’t “resign”. He was fired. Full stop. It’s all just legalese for OSF to avoid another lawsuit. And finally, if you’re a person of color, please look for employment elsewhere. Despite the leadership team being primarily people of color, almost all off them are toxic. I was foolish to think this place would be any different. If you don’t fit the mold, you’re going to have a hard time fitting in here.
Advice to Management
It’s hard for me to say this, but the organization is beyond saving in its current iteration. It needs to be gutted. It’s is rotting from the inside and out and it needs leaders that are in it solely for the health of the institution, not industry recognition.
6 Not recommended
Need all new leadership. Start over. Bring back the theater we all knew and loved. It worked! Seats were sold out. The community was proud. People planned their trips around OSF. Families had reunions every year there. It was a summer celebration of live theater.
Thank you for posting that. I had made a pdf of the reviews on that website and emailed it to the OSF board back in March (but the number of reviews has grown since then). I was in management in the tech industry for decades, and an executive coach for a bit after that. I've seen many, many, 360 feedback reports, employee attitude surveys, etc., and I've never seen anything as damning as those about OSF.
Holy smokes! The more I read, the more I learn. Thanks for that. Wow. By the way, when I tried to check on Glass Door, they wanted way too much information about me. I will rely on your posting. Glass Door looks like one more Sillicon Valley whatever.
The philosophy seems to be that, if you want to take, you need to give. I'm ok with that. If it's about extracting personal data for financial gain, not so much. You can be a volunteer to the organization of your choice (I think) and make an account.
They demand a level of personal information that goes way, way, WAY beyond anything I have seen. I recall prior iterations of Glass Door. They must have been taken over by some real freaks. Or maybe their Palo Alto venture capital board of directors has decided that Glass Door has to make money, but doesn't have a clue how that can happen.
Yep. That's why I used my daughter's account to dive in and grab these reviews -- because I knew the average Joe a) would never see them, and b) would be discouraged from signing up to see them even if inspired. There are plenty more on there, all but 4 of the 39 are very very negative, as the 1.8 out of 5 indicates.
Berthold Brecht, George Bernard Shaw and countless others found fresh and interesting ways to get their contemporaries discussing what they perceived to be the problems ailing society. Like other pusillanimous spirits, the OSF fiends gleefully obey an ideology that is out to destroy venerable institutions that used to bring joy, knowledge, insights and laughter to the world instead of creating something new and enriching. Thank you for reminding us once more to beware the brethren of the red guards wherever they raise their ugly heads!
Dang, you mean Bobby Darin didn't write it? Oh the shark bites ...
I always associated that song with the mafia in New York. Cement shoes, The Godfather, and so on. Thanks for the education. Holy smokes! Always good to learn something new! Wow!
Those are interesting questions indeed -- at least some of them. The answers might provide insight into what happened to $17.4 million in cash on hand between Oct. 31, 2021 and a week ago when OSF claimed financial hardship. To me, that's a BIG red flag. Another one is that it looks like the outside accountant's FY22 audit might be delayed. In the world of public companies, delayed audits have caused many a stock to crash.
In the public company world, the latest audit would carry a "going concern" notice, along with a detailed explanation of why.
What I don't know is whether or not there's been a consistent schedule of audit completion; it could be that in the non-profit world, that particular timeliness standard isn't nearly as rigorous. Still, I find it curious indeed that OSF would cry poor before their FY22 audit was finalized and released. It's one thing that caused my antennae to rise, if you'd recall the old "My Favorite Martian" TV show.
The "bloated salaries," "trips to Sundance," the "Festival's Air BNB account" and "money wasted in the online platforms" strike me as nebulous. If I were the investigator, I'd focus like a laser beam (apologies to Ross Perot in 1992) on what happened to that $17.4 million cash balance. I'd want to into the sick leave, the wrongful terminations, and the AD's husband/consultant -- depending on how much money was involved, and when it was paid.
Those seem potentially significant. In particular, wrongful termination claims can be really expensive. I saw that they've had a bunch of departures. If big claims were paid in FY22 or this year, that could explain the current crisis. Do you have any detail that you can share? Also, I will crawl back through the IRS 990s and see if I can find more on those "bloated salaries" and whether they've changed recently. (more to come)
I get it. I hope you can see that I'm trying hard to steer a course around the artistic debates. Not because I regard them as off-limits, but because I'd like to try to be unemotional about all of that and focus on the dollars.
I learned about this only a week ago. I was shocked by OSF's demand for money, and then saw the disputes about artistic direction. I am far more sympathetic about that than I might sound, but the IRS Form 990s show that ticket sales are a minor part of OSF's revenue.
It appears that a lack of attendance isn't really the driver of their financial issues, at least not to the degree that most people (including myself, when I started looking) might imagine. I remain truly baffled by the mechanics of $17.4 million on hand only 17-1/2 months ago, and now an emergency appeal for cash.
As a financial analyst, I'd tug at this or that thread and see what happened to the suit. The more I think about this right now, the more I am wondering about any wrongful termination claims. Those can cost BOATLOADS of money. My curiosity is growing fast.
OSF has a board of directors. I served on a board of a private company, and was the head of the audit committee. Boards are typically rubber stamps for the CEO, but I was the representative of a major investor. From a distance, it sounds like the OSF board was asleep, even by the "rubber stamp" metric. You've raised interesting questions, but I'd do a bit more sorting out.
I see, from re-reading some stories in the Oregonian, that OSF had a "wave of departures" in early 2023. If those were accompanied by wrongful termination claims, and if those claims were paid, it could explain the rapid drawdown in cash. Hmm. Wrongful terminations? If that's the case, the details would be worth looking at.
I see that OSF had some substantial pledges from some individuals and foundations recently. I wonder what information they requested before making those gifts and pledges.
Okay, Mary, you're a poet and I am a numbers nerd from hell. But a poet or three has told me that I have a great untutored eye for modern art, and I have occasionally said that the biggest difference between humans and animals is that humans create art on purpose. Art is everywhere you look, and I love it. I say all this in hopes that you and others here will put up with what I have to say. It's artless, but I want people to pay attention.
I am a retired financial analyst with deep experience in financial statement analysis, so I have focused on Oregon Shakespeare Festival's IRS disclosures (Form 990), and the most recent audit performed by McDonald Jacobs, an accountancy in Portland. OSF's fiscal 2021 ended on Oct. 31, and the audit showed a cash balance of $17.4 million.
The most OSF has ever lost in any year, near as I can tell, is $4.5 million -- in FY21 -- but that loss was counterbalanced by a big influx of cash from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, a covid-generated program administered by the Small Business Administration. Even though OSF lost $4.5 million from operations, its cash on hand went from $12.2 million to $17.4 million in the same FY.
Why does that matter? Because it's been only 17-1/2 months since their FY21 ended, but OSF is threatening to cancel their season unless they get $1.5 million by June, and they've established a fundraising goal of $2.5 million by the end of the summer. In the words of the immortal Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks: "Where's the Money?"
OSF is seeking a $5.1 million bailout from the taxpayers of Oregon. My question, again, is "Where's the Money?" How did they ever run through $17.4 million in 17-1/2 months when they haven't even come remotely close to doing that in the decade or so worth of IRS Form 990s that I looked at?
... You have raised questions about their artistic direction, and from what I can ascertain, those questions appear to be valid. I wonder if OSF regards Shakespeare as part burden and part grocery store loss leader to bring people in the door, but not something to care much about. That's for you and the rest of the poets to debate, and I'm interested. But I'm REALLY interested in the numbers. We all have our parts in the play, no?
When I raised these questions on OSF's Facebook page, they deleted them and blocked me from any involvement there. Good enough. I am in touch with the sponsor of Oregon HB 2459, Portland's own Rep. Rob Nosse, who I have never met and know nothing about. His office seems interested in looking into the finances.
I don't want OSF to shut down. Far, far from it. I'd call myself "center-right" these days, but with a big old-school liberal side. My point to their office is that if anyone ought to be the keepers of the public treasury, the liberal side ought to be. There are too many needs in Oregon and everywhere else to countenance flakiness with tax receipts.
Perhaps OSF and their outside auditors have good answers about the money. I hope so. But I think those answers should be forthcoming before the Oregon Legislature hands OSF $5.1 million. I hope the sponsors of HB 2459 will take a close look before shipping off a pallet of cash. "Where's the Money?"
p.s.: I'm not on Twitter. Tried several times, but they have so many problems with basic software that I couldn't even sign up. Feel free to spread this word there. I couldn't care less about credit.
Hi there Some Guy, Thanks and ever thanks for your deep dive into numbers as mysterious to poets like me as perhaps poetry might be to a numbers guy like you. I have some ideas about sharing this information in order to get a reckoning, which is all you want on the numbers side and certainly all I need on the storytelling side. I've shared your post already and will do some more mindful distribution tomorrow. To know that you are sleuthing this out on your end with Rep. Nosse is a relief -- like you, I'm loathe to throw good money after bad, especially in these high-water times. And like you, I don't want the company shut down. Way too many lives depend upon it, to say nothing of Ashland's civic health, and the heart health of a state with -- or without -- a soul such as OSF was in its glory days. But to those days it must earnestly and firmly and with dedication return, or it remains no good to anyone -- a money pit, a darkling spirit, there in the Rogue River Valley, a shadow-self of what it was. It must return anew to an elevated place, or cease to be, in my opinion. Where it is now, the stories it tries and fails to tell, the audiences it disdains and the money it wastes cannot abide. I hope you'll keep us posted here, and let's both hope for a happy beginning to a new OSF.
Please share everywhere. I couldn't sell heaters to Eskimos and figure that applies to making anything "go viral." If you and others here can make it go viral, DO IT.
A thought about poets and nerds. Without poets, we'd all die of boredom and stagnation. Without nerds, nothing would get done and nothing would get built, including the theaters where the poets perform. We snipe at each other, which ain't the worst thing, but we need each other.
Good! One objection will be that I have cherry picked. The answer is that I have done no such thing. That's part of why my comment was so long. I also ran it past an old friend who's a retired chief financial officer just in case I missed anything. His response was that I was correct to smell a rat. The guy used to laughingly, and accurately, describe himelf as "a proctologist with a depth perception problem."
In what I used to do for a living, honesty meant not only the right numbers but the correct context. Integrity: It's boring, but it's what's for breakfast. I am the sworn enemy of statistical and numerical misrepresentation, having seen it in many forms. Or to put it differently: If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out. Cherry pickers didn't stay employed for long. Still, if OSF and its outside accountant can MATERIALLY contradict this, i.e., not pick cherries from their own orchard, more power to them.
Frankly, I will be very surprised if they do. Or even try. I think they'll stonewall, hoping that they won't have to explain anything. I think the end result of a real investigation might wind up involving the Oregon attorney general. For we nerds trained in financial statement analysis, the red flags are obvious and flapping in the wind. This isn't little stuff, it's big stuff. One pointed question: Did McDonald Jacobs actually verify the cash balance listed in its audit? It's standard practice, but did they do it?
Who knows, maybe my questions will be called racist? The answer to that one is easy: Money isn't black, white, yellow, or red. It's green. Where's the Money?
I wanted to add, at the risk of redundancy, that I fully understand how boring and impenetrable this stuff can be. In addition to wanting to go through the details, I wanted to present it in a form understandable to poets.
Unfortunately, that requires more words. If I'd done it in financial-ese, everyone's eyes would glaze over. It's the bane of every nerd's existence. There is nothing entertaining about it, so all I can do is hope that I've presented this in understandable terms.
I have an MBA from Wharton, and I still remember my first accounting test. Financial accounting intimidated the bejeesus out of me to the point of being actually frightened by it. No one was more shocked than me to a) have found that I really liked the subject, and b) to have scored a 93/100 on that test after having the dry heaves.
Then there is "managerial accounting," the stuff of debits and credits. Call it bookkeeping on steroids, and I hated it. But financial accounting? To my everlasting shock, the analytical power of accurate financial accounting is really astounding. They call it "accrual accounting," but I nicknamed it "a cruel accounting" until I mastered it. LOL
Oh, and then there was "advanced financial accounting," which was all about how to detect lies in financial statements. On the first day of the class, the professor gave us a short list of numbers. He told us to imagine that we were in senior management with stock options as part of compensation. So the quarterly numbers would count a lot, personally.
How much did you think the company earned per share, and what would you report? The class average was that the earnings were 48 cents/share, and that we'd report 52 cents. It was a very useful class. LOL
I started attending OSF back in the 80s, taking my then teen-age son to see "Midsummer Night's Dream" and a delightful Sheridan Restoration comedy. My husband and I have since attended OSF every year for decades, except for the pandemic closures, usually immersing ourselves in 5-6 plays and staying in B&Bs where we can talk theatre with other like-minded friends. Thank you for crystallizing in words the conflicted feelings we've had about the offerings from the past several years. We fall into that category you describe ... progressive mindset with a keen, open-minded interest in history. Some plays, such as "The African Company Presents Richard III" are powerful, and can present history in a way that is illuminating without co-opting a largely white audience into singing about how much we suck. There have been many contemporary social-justice plays we've enjoyed, but it does feel unbalanced in recent years. I have heard others express this same sentiment.
Are you all racing to purchase your tickets to the newly announced 'Cyberland' film extravaganza? Featured are the AD's (OSF funded) vanity film projects that never got any traction despite her fully funded escapades to Sundance, etc: https://www.osfashland.org/productions/2023-digital/cyberland
Sigh, just 4 years ago OSF was the largest repertory theater company in the country. The annual 11 production repertoire featured critically acclaimed new plays and always - Shakespeare.
"Featured are the AD's (OSF funded) vanity film projects"
Where did you find that all included films are projects of their Artistic Director? Based on your link, Nataki Garrett was listed on two of the five films. Is there another source you could share?
This must be the same doc - at the top it says "NOV 1, 2020 and ending OCT 31, 2021" If you have the $17M balance you have it! So sorry if I am misdescribing! The next newest Audit we heard just today "has not yet been completed" but it should be soon because last years was released in March.
I am just a 'Some Girl' artist who has also analyzed all the available OSF financials thru 2021 and SG, you get the prize! The 2021 Audit shows a balance of $17,403,992 (as well as an endowment of $38,664,051, but that is a topic for another tale). Where this money has gone will be revealed any day as the 2022 audit is coming! The Ashland community has been awash in details yet cowed by venomous and oh-so public accusation. The day of reckoning and accountability for those responsible for this tragedy is close.
Related to fiscal history, I was frustrated hearing excuses from current OSF leadership describing “years of structural deficits". So I did an analysis of the income-expenditures revenue stream using data from the 2010-2018 Annual Reports. Six of those years ended in deficit spending. (2018 being a bad smoke/many canceled performances season). Three of the years showed a profit. Total losses in 9 years equaled $9,917,301 and total profit was $7,274,015.
So, 9 years, 99 productions and a total expenditure of $307M yielded a loss of $2,642,286. I am not advocating for deficit spending. Nor am I denying that the prior AD pretty much had the run of the candy store. But a $2.6M loss over 9 years it not what it is made out to be by those who use it to defend the current administration, A.D. and Board alike. What they would give for a return to $40M annual budgets. Not on this watch!
One question I'd have is whether OSF has suffered from administrative top-heaviness. This puts me out on a limb, because I really don't know and don't pretend to know. Relative to, say, 20 years ago, prior to their having fired 12 people and laid off another 7, and announced that they weren't going to fill 18 positions, what did the upper echelon there look like, personnel-wise?
It would be useful to know, minus any mixing of apples (artistic direction) and oranges (money). I'm hyper aware that I'm commenting in a thread full of people who oppose their artistic direction. I am trying to stay away from any of those disputes and look at the organizational structure. I see a lot of criticism of increasing administrative overhead in universities, and wonder if the same phenomenon has been at play at OSF, and for how long.
To clarify, the artistic direction isn't the issue, it's the culture: politicized, censorial, rotten with Critical Theory and taken all together, pushing a monocultural agenda that has nothing to do with art, and everything to do with civic collapse. I wish artistic direction were the issue -- that gets sorted out at the box office and bank accounts fairly quickly, and it happens all the time at arts orgs. In this case, it's a virus that's infected the entire company. It will take quite some time to cure it.
To me, everything you've just mentioned falls into "artistic direction," or at least ends up there. In no way do I disdain those concerns, but approach this from another direction. To put it differently, if OSF were all-Shakespeare, or mostly Shakespeare with other plays in the same spirit, freely translated, and the same fiscal circumstances were present, I would have the same issues: "First you've got to get the facts; then you've got to face the facts."
To wit: I smell a rat. A big, furry shithouse rat. I even smell that rat's breath. OSF has burned through $17.4 million in cash in next to no time. They're now running to the Oregon Legislature for a spiff, after having scooped in quite a few millions from the feds. Please believe me, I am not stomping on your concerns as a poet. Without art, we're not human. That's not a throwaway line; I really believe it. (By the way, 99% of art is outside of the picture frames. I could go on and on about that.) I love art at the cellular level, and sometimes I think I'm more of an art appreciator than a lot of those who are artists by trade. To be human is to be an artist. Art is everywhere you look.
In any case, a real advantage of my nerd perspective is that it's much harder to argue with, at least if you don't torture Winston Smith into saying that 2 + 2 = 5. Mary, I am not in any way dismissing your perspective, but only asking that we not quibble about terminology. "Artistic direction" might not be the exactly correct label, but I think it's close enough for horseshoes.
This financial statement analyst is like a dog with numbers. Dogs smell the cheese from upstairs. I smell bad numbers from 300 miles away. Something stinks at OSF -- in the numbers, the boring shit -- and I smell it from here. They did themselves no favors by banning me from their Facebook page.
It's a difference with an actual distinction. "Artistic direction" has to do with play choice, generally. In this case, as the culture is based in Critical Theory and not art (hence the company's chilling mission statement) it presents a much larger, and far more concerning, problem. You can shorthand it with "artistic direction" if you'd like, though it doesn't come close to describing the intent and goals of leadership there. "Political agenda" is much more accurate, in the truest sense. Regardless, I'm super glad to have you on the team. As an addendum I agree that while the fictional Winston Smith would resist the equation you mentioned, the very real Winston Marshall would, too.
To this point - take the OSF Mission Statement listed on the 2021 (most recently available) 990 - it describes:
"Inspired by Shakespeare’s work and the cultural richness of the United States, we reveal our collective humanity through illuminating interpretations of new and classic plays, deepened by the kaleidoscope of Rotating Repertory."
Compare that to a recently published legal document filing with the National Labor Relations Board dated 1/23 describing the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as a "not-for-profit anti-racist social justice organization located in Ashland, Oregon, that presents plays in repertory.”
Mission creep or - Wait . . . what?! Nothing subtle about this attempted take over of a beloved 80+ year institution - once the largest repertory theater in the country!
Yes. If you want to see them Google 'OSF Annual Reports' and they are listed by year. They are part donor acknowledgement, part marketing, and part celebration of successes - listed with data regarding attendance compared to capacity for each production, etc. Much easier to read/interpret. One significant point of interest on the 990's is the listing of salaries for the top positions of leadership. You will see that the OSF AD is being VERY VERY well compensated and that was 2 years ago. It is my understanding that her salary has since increased significantly. Rather than a reduction, in keeping with the fiscal crisis, her salary was raised as she was given the additional title of Interim Executive Director when the board euphemistically "accepted the resignations" of the two other leading salaried employees, including the Director of Development, both announced in January.
The first link is not to the 2021 IRS Form 990. It's to their accountant's audit. I will look at the annual reports. My suspicion is that the numbers are from Form 990s, but I will check.
That's a blank form. The latest IRS Form 990 for OSF that I could find is for 2020. On the principle that even the most dogged searcher (raising my hand) could miss something, I'd love to have later 990s. I cannot find them. I'd also love to have the accountancy's audit for 2022. Cannot find that either.
This is nerd-level stuff, and by definition it is boring as hell. Half of my job was searching for data, and getting low-level migraines doing it. I assure you that it isn't theoretical crapping around. The FY22 audit and/or the 2022 Form 990 (they are calendar years) are material to a rigorous analysis. Even the 2021 Form 990 would help. Your posts caused me to search, but that search was in vain. If you find those things, like Ross Perot, I am all ears.
Trust me, when it comes to this sort of stuff, I truly LOVE to be corrected. Not joking one bit.
So sorry, I hate oblique acronyms! Artistic Director is in many theaters (but not all) and OSF the primary decision maker regarding a theater's content/productions, tone setter- as in messaging/marketing, hiring of actors etc..
I have a lot of conflicted thoughts about Shakespeare, the Ashland Shakespeare Theater and the free
Shakespeare in the park, that at one point in time put Shakespeare all over Portland in Parks and cemeteries for free. To begin with there is the fascinating and as it turns out controversial issue of who actually wrote the plays. See www dot sirbacon dot org. I remember scouring the bookstores in Ashland for discussion of the authorship question; none of the bookstores had hardly anything. Francis Bacon himself wrote the plays to transform reality, thus putting him in line with the "woke culture" of today. Bacon was also an early proponent and founder of secret societies including the Rosicrucians and the Free Masons. His was the world of all powerful "philosopher kings" which ironically with the rise of antifa and the cultural revolutionaries, puts him right in the mix. That said, I agree that the cultural institutions have now taken on denouncing, belittling and dumbing down, the audiences that pay good money to see "plays". Another take-away from this cultural hellscape / dystopia is that "critical race theory" is adamantly opposed to "critical thinking" because Critical Thinking can empower individuals while "crt" locks people into a passive subservient mode. Just what the elites ordered! (hence the continued funding of this shit show.)
It's not a bad article, but it blames racism toward black women in the end, which I reject out of hand. To conclude with Garrett saying "That doesn’t change the fact that bias is in the water," by my lights, renders anything she further says meaningless, and anything the journalist writes suspect. It's also deeply insulting and condescending, and a solid example of her failure to lead well.
I thought the article is much more nuanced than any of other things I've read. Yes , he closed with those self-serving generalizations from Nataki. It's what she's been saying since early 2021. No surprise. He reported things earlier in the article that I hope reveal more of the story to people on the outside. As to this and future reporting, I hope for progress, not perfection.
I remember trying to figure out how to establish an account, but I don't remember feeling a concern other than wanting to be truthful. Maybe that's because I've become socialized to accept personal intrusion. I hope not.
For those interested in diving into the most recent 2021 OSF 990 - be sure to look for the $42,9k compensation to the AD's husband for "CONTRACTED SERVICES". It is my understanding that this compensation continued into the following year - yet to be exposed in the pending '2022 audit.
Here's how former employees rate Oregon Shakes as a place to work as posted on glassdoor.com: "Oregon Shakespeare Festival has an overall rating of 1.8 out of 5, based on over 39 reviews left anonymously by employees. 8% of employees would recommend working at Oregon Shakespeare Festival to a friend and 4% have a positive outlook for the business. This rating has decreased by -48% over the last 12 months. Employees also rated Oregon Shakespeare Festival 1.5 out of 5 for work life balance, 1.9 for culture and values and 2.4 for career opportunities.
Some of their comments:
1 Burn out galore, no communication, hollow requests for ideas
The salary ranges are beyond ridiculous. Some people who have worked here for decades make below where they should be, while members of the senior leadership team make near or over $200K.
2 Was valued, until I wasn't.
The administration is more focused on politics than theatre or storytelling. They are systematically tearing down institutional history in favor of creating a new narrative. However, we need to understand history if we are going to build a new future.
3 The Worst Place I Have Ever Worked
From the sexual harassment to bullying to going against the "vision" to fiscal mismanagement to feeding people to the board to funneling money to inflate egos... it's all true. OSF needs to be reborn with competent people at the top. … I hope everyone comes to know the truth about what has been going on at OSF because everything that is being sold to the media is also a lie.
4 Used to love it here, now can't wait to leave.
The organization has had a pretty hard time since the start of the pandemic, as have most arts orgs. But OSF hasn't bounced back the way other orgs have. Leadership has burned their bridges with the community and alienated most of its donors through a series of ridiculously bad calls:
Gutting the industry-leading education program.
Eliminating the membership program and revoking most of the benefits of being a donor while expecting people to continue giving out of the goodness of their hearts.
Kicking an 80+ year old volunteer organization out of its role running the gift shop (so now no gift shop generating revenue and hundreds of angry former volunteers and donors).
Cutting the number of shows in half and expecting ticket sales to not drop catastrophically.
Sinking millions into vanity digital projects with no ROI, some of which look like they were made by highs school students.
Social media and PR contractors who work to burnish the reputation of one person instead of the company.
Hiring contractors from among a small, favored list, with outrageous pay and no controls on costs or firm list of deliverables.
Ignoring or firing long-term professionals because their professional opinion doesn't align with the aspirational goals of management.
Outright lying to the board of directors on financial forecasts to make them think vanity projects can bring in enough revenue to support themselves.
Firing or driving out competent leaders and hiring replacements without the skill and experience to do the job and paying them more to do less.
Ego, ego, and more ego.
It's sad to see a once-great organization broken like this. COVID certainly did its part to ruin the place. Inept executive leadership with a one-size-fits-all big city mentality it tried to force onto a small town didn't help. Artistic leadership that goes around saying things like "these white people think the purpose of theater is to be entertained" and "we used to be Shakespeare summer camp for rich old white ladies" and having programmed the three most depressing seasons of theater in the organization's history in a time when the whole world was just looking for a little joy drove the nail into the coffin.
Advice to Management
Find a strong business-minded Executive Director who will remember that the purpose of the organization is to produce shows people want to see, at a sustainable price.
Stop the disastrous and costly experiments with VR and go back to the roots of producing quality live theater (and film it for broader distribution).
Build a functioning finance department that can pay bills on time.
5 To quote Shakespeare: "Hell is empty and all the devils are here"
Artistic and current leadership can be great artists, but are convinced they can do the administrative and business side of operations and, as evidenced by all of my former colleagues reviews here, obviously cannot. They demand respect but refuse to respect anyone else’s expertise in their fields or professions. The amount of time and energy spent trying to do our jobs while having to carefully tiptoe around wild narcissism and egos was unmatched and exhausting. Leadership has no understanding of people’s jobs outside of their Artistic department, and thus continuously led to poor staffing decisions including nonsensical layoffs, stolen ideas, and interdepartmental strain. Gaslighting and retaliation against speaking up was a huge issue, and one I personally was affected by along with many of my colleagues. Training in systems is nearly non-existent. People let go without warning and their colleagues forced to take up work they are not trained in was very common. Always understaffed and very high turnover. While I was very optimistic of the DEI work, it eventually means nothing when leadership, many of them BIPOC themselves, turn out to be toxic and abusive. So many instances of talk the talk, but not walk the walk. I could go on, but honestly they have already taken so much of my labor in ways I did not consent, that I am simply too tired to remember everything.
Advice to Management
Leave. Accept your implicit role in this organization’s last breath. Yes, there were already systematic issues, yes it was already in a downward trajectory before the COVID shutdown, but the horrific mismanagement of funds and staff over the last few years should be acknowledged and accountability taken – don’t you remember we had a whole series of DEI trainings on accountability? Or was that only to waste staff’s time? Unfortunately, Leadership and Artistic only speak hollow words and never once walked the path of OSF’s stated Mission and Values. Sad, as at least the rest of us tried. As for everyone outside the organization reading this: take any press release or media news relating to OSF with a grain of salt. Look at it with a critical eye. Because as staff and former staff who loved this organization and the work we were trying to do, we are tired of the lies.
Listen to and protect whistleblowers and people who bring credible claims of harassment and discrimination.
Invest in the Education program, which used to be one of OSF's Crown Jewels but has been denigrated by artistic leadership for the last several years even though it was a major source of pride (as well as new audiences and new donors) for decades. Just because you’ve spoken to people who attended once in high school and never came back doesn't mean that thousands of others haven't made a lifelong connection to the arts through that program - expand it instead of killing it.
Run leaner productions with fewer frills and less expensive sets to cut costs.
Stop wasting millions of dollars on expensive contractors and endless strategic planning.
Remember that you are a theater. Your job is to produce shows people want to see, then sell them tickets to see it.
6 A theatrical “omniverse” of toxic “paradigms” and abuse. The most dysfunctional org in American Theatre.
While I was there, there seemed to be a fear around reporting less than ideal working conditions to leadership especially if it was dissonant against the “vision” or anyone that was favored by the AD or ED. The fiscal mismanagement has existed for years now, and due to lack of leadership or backbone from the last ED, we continued to hemorrhage cash on superfluous staffing, digital and VR programming and other personal favors that have yielded little monetary returns which this org needs desperately. Many of these ideas came from the AD who had a strenuous relationship with the ED and ultimately fed him to the board. He didn’t “resign”. He was fired. Full stop. It’s all just legalese for OSF to avoid another lawsuit. And finally, if you’re a person of color, please look for employment elsewhere. Despite the leadership team being primarily people of color, almost all off them are toxic. I was foolish to think this place would be any different. If you don’t fit the mold, you’re going to have a hard time fitting in here.
Advice to Management
It’s hard for me to say this, but the organization is beyond saving in its current iteration. It needs to be gutted. It’s is rotting from the inside and out and it needs leaders that are in it solely for the health of the institution, not industry recognition.
6 Not recommended
Need all new leadership. Start over. Bring back the theater we all knew and loved. It worked! Seats were sold out. The community was proud. People planned their trips around OSF. Families had reunions every year there. It was a summer celebration of live theater.
Thank you for posting that. I had made a pdf of the reviews on that website and emailed it to the OSF board back in March (but the number of reviews has grown since then). I was in management in the tech industry for decades, and an executive coach for a bit after that. I've seen many, many, 360 feedback reports, employee attitude surveys, etc., and I've never seen anything as damning as those about OSF.
Holy smokes! The more I read, the more I learn. Thanks for that. Wow. By the way, when I tried to check on Glass Door, they wanted way too much information about me. I will rely on your posting. Glass Door looks like one more Sillicon Valley whatever.
The philosophy seems to be that, if you want to take, you need to give. I'm ok with that. If it's about extracting personal data for financial gain, not so much. You can be a volunteer to the organization of your choice (I think) and make an account.
They demand a level of personal information that goes way, way, WAY beyond anything I have seen. I recall prior iterations of Glass Door. They must have been taken over by some real freaks. Or maybe their Palo Alto venture capital board of directors has decided that Glass Door has to make money, but doesn't have a clue how that can happen.
Yep. That's why I used my daughter's account to dive in and grab these reviews -- because I knew the average Joe a) would never see them, and b) would be discouraged from signing up to see them even if inspired. There are plenty more on there, all but 4 of the 39 are very very negative, as the 1.8 out of 5 indicates.
Is it worth creating a phony profile there? I hate doing that, but if it matters I will. What do you think?
Naw, don't trouble. I've posted enough for a very comprehensive sense of the employment situation there.
Berthold Brecht, George Bernard Shaw and countless others found fresh and interesting ways to get their contemporaries discussing what they perceived to be the problems ailing society. Like other pusillanimous spirits, the OSF fiends gleefully obey an ideology that is out to destroy venerable institutions that used to bring joy, knowledge, insights and laughter to the world instead of creating something new and enriching. Thank you for reminding us once more to beware the brethren of the red guards wherever they raise their ugly heads!
Brecht wrote "Mother Courage," correct? I read it in high school, but it's been a long time.
Yes, he did. You might also know “The Threepenny Opera” (music by Kurt Weill - Mack the knife”)
https://youtu.be/rfnSfFQdrNo
Dang, you mean Bobby Darin didn't write it? Oh the shark bites ...
I always associated that song with the mafia in New York. Cement shoes, The Godfather, and so on. Thanks for the education. Holy smokes! Always good to learn something new! Wow!
Who is investigating:
The number of salaries that were paid to employees who were on sick leave - for years.
The former employee who continued to use the Festival's Air BnB account long after leaving.
The former employees who got pay outs for wrongful termination.
The trips to Sundance - Sundance is for film, not theatre.
The fact that the AD's husband is on the payroll! - As a consultant.
The fact that salaries are bloated.
The amount of money wasted in the online platforms
Those are interesting questions indeed -- at least some of them. The answers might provide insight into what happened to $17.4 million in cash on hand between Oct. 31, 2021 and a week ago when OSF claimed financial hardship. To me, that's a BIG red flag. Another one is that it looks like the outside accountant's FY22 audit might be delayed. In the world of public companies, delayed audits have caused many a stock to crash.
In the public company world, the latest audit would carry a "going concern" notice, along with a detailed explanation of why.
What I don't know is whether or not there's been a consistent schedule of audit completion; it could be that in the non-profit world, that particular timeliness standard isn't nearly as rigorous. Still, I find it curious indeed that OSF would cry poor before their FY22 audit was finalized and released. It's one thing that caused my antennae to rise, if you'd recall the old "My Favorite Martian" TV show.
The "bloated salaries," "trips to Sundance," the "Festival's Air BNB account" and "money wasted in the online platforms" strike me as nebulous. If I were the investigator, I'd focus like a laser beam (apologies to Ross Perot in 1992) on what happened to that $17.4 million cash balance. I'd want to into the sick leave, the wrongful terminations, and the AD's husband/consultant -- depending on how much money was involved, and when it was paid.
Those seem potentially significant. In particular, wrongful termination claims can be really expensive. I saw that they've had a bunch of departures. If big claims were paid in FY22 or this year, that could explain the current crisis. Do you have any detail that you can share? Also, I will crawl back through the IRS 990s and see if I can find more on those "bloated salaries" and whether they've changed recently. (more to come)
Just asking the questions that I am hearing and what I have witnessed on FB.
I get it. I hope you can see that I'm trying hard to steer a course around the artistic debates. Not because I regard them as off-limits, but because I'd like to try to be unemotional about all of that and focus on the dollars.
Absolutely and I applaud and celebrate that. It's about fiscal mismanagement, not personalities.
I learned about this only a week ago. I was shocked by OSF's demand for money, and then saw the disputes about artistic direction. I am far more sympathetic about that than I might sound, but the IRS Form 990s show that ticket sales are a minor part of OSF's revenue.
It appears that a lack of attendance isn't really the driver of their financial issues, at least not to the degree that most people (including myself, when I started looking) might imagine. I remain truly baffled by the mechanics of $17.4 million on hand only 17-1/2 months ago, and now an emergency appeal for cash.
As a financial analyst, I'd tug at this or that thread and see what happened to the suit. The more I think about this right now, the more I am wondering about any wrongful termination claims. Those can cost BOATLOADS of money. My curiosity is growing fast.
OSF has a board of directors. I served on a board of a private company, and was the head of the audit committee. Boards are typically rubber stamps for the CEO, but I was the representative of a major investor. From a distance, it sounds like the OSF board was asleep, even by the "rubber stamp" metric. You've raised interesting questions, but I'd do a bit more sorting out.
I see, from re-reading some stories in the Oregonian, that OSF had a "wave of departures" in early 2023. If those were accompanied by wrongful termination claims, and if those claims were paid, it could explain the rapid drawdown in cash. Hmm. Wrongful terminations? If that's the case, the details would be worth looking at.
I see that OSF had some substantial pledges from some individuals and foundations recently. I wonder what information they requested before making those gifts and pledges.
Okay, Mary, you're a poet and I am a numbers nerd from hell. But a poet or three has told me that I have a great untutored eye for modern art, and I have occasionally said that the biggest difference between humans and animals is that humans create art on purpose. Art is everywhere you look, and I love it. I say all this in hopes that you and others here will put up with what I have to say. It's artless, but I want people to pay attention.
I am a retired financial analyst with deep experience in financial statement analysis, so I have focused on Oregon Shakespeare Festival's IRS disclosures (Form 990), and the most recent audit performed by McDonald Jacobs, an accountancy in Portland. OSF's fiscal 2021 ended on Oct. 31, and the audit showed a cash balance of $17.4 million.
The most OSF has ever lost in any year, near as I can tell, is $4.5 million -- in FY21 -- but that loss was counterbalanced by a big influx of cash from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, a covid-generated program administered by the Small Business Administration. Even though OSF lost $4.5 million from operations, its cash on hand went from $12.2 million to $17.4 million in the same FY.
Why does that matter? Because it's been only 17-1/2 months since their FY21 ended, but OSF is threatening to cancel their season unless they get $1.5 million by June, and they've established a fundraising goal of $2.5 million by the end of the summer. In the words of the immortal Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks: "Where's the Money?"
OSF is seeking a $5.1 million bailout from the taxpayers of Oregon. My question, again, is "Where's the Money?" How did they ever run through $17.4 million in 17-1/2 months when they haven't even come remotely close to doing that in the decade or so worth of IRS Form 990s that I looked at?
(split because of the length limit here)
... You have raised questions about their artistic direction, and from what I can ascertain, those questions appear to be valid. I wonder if OSF regards Shakespeare as part burden and part grocery store loss leader to bring people in the door, but not something to care much about. That's for you and the rest of the poets to debate, and I'm interested. But I'm REALLY interested in the numbers. We all have our parts in the play, no?
When I raised these questions on OSF's Facebook page, they deleted them and blocked me from any involvement there. Good enough. I am in touch with the sponsor of Oregon HB 2459, Portland's own Rep. Rob Nosse, who I have never met and know nothing about. His office seems interested in looking into the finances.
I don't want OSF to shut down. Far, far from it. I'd call myself "center-right" these days, but with a big old-school liberal side. My point to their office is that if anyone ought to be the keepers of the public treasury, the liberal side ought to be. There are too many needs in Oregon and everywhere else to countenance flakiness with tax receipts.
Perhaps OSF and their outside auditors have good answers about the money. I hope so. But I think those answers should be forthcoming before the Oregon Legislature hands OSF $5.1 million. I hope the sponsors of HB 2459 will take a close look before shipping off a pallet of cash. "Where's the Money?"
p.s.: I'm not on Twitter. Tried several times, but they have so many problems with basic software that I couldn't even sign up. Feel free to spread this word there. I couldn't care less about credit.
Hi there Some Guy, Thanks and ever thanks for your deep dive into numbers as mysterious to poets like me as perhaps poetry might be to a numbers guy like you. I have some ideas about sharing this information in order to get a reckoning, which is all you want on the numbers side and certainly all I need on the storytelling side. I've shared your post already and will do some more mindful distribution tomorrow. To know that you are sleuthing this out on your end with Rep. Nosse is a relief -- like you, I'm loathe to throw good money after bad, especially in these high-water times. And like you, I don't want the company shut down. Way too many lives depend upon it, to say nothing of Ashland's civic health, and the heart health of a state with -- or without -- a soul such as OSF was in its glory days. But to those days it must earnestly and firmly and with dedication return, or it remains no good to anyone -- a money pit, a darkling spirit, there in the Rogue River Valley, a shadow-self of what it was. It must return anew to an elevated place, or cease to be, in my opinion. Where it is now, the stories it tries and fails to tell, the audiences it disdains and the money it wastes cannot abide. I hope you'll keep us posted here, and let's both hope for a happy beginning to a new OSF.
Plus anyone who quotes DH and the HL is A-OK in my book.
Please share everywhere. I couldn't sell heaters to Eskimos and figure that applies to making anything "go viral." If you and others here can make it go viral, DO IT.
A thought about poets and nerds. Without poets, we'd all die of boredom and stagnation. Without nerds, nothing would get done and nothing would get built, including the theaters where the poets perform. We snipe at each other, which ain't the worst thing, but we need each other.
We’re working on getting the word out, SG. Thanks for all this. Really. Every little bit helps!
Good! One objection will be that I have cherry picked. The answer is that I have done no such thing. That's part of why my comment was so long. I also ran it past an old friend who's a retired chief financial officer just in case I missed anything. His response was that I was correct to smell a rat. The guy used to laughingly, and accurately, describe himelf as "a proctologist with a depth perception problem."
In what I used to do for a living, honesty meant not only the right numbers but the correct context. Integrity: It's boring, but it's what's for breakfast. I am the sworn enemy of statistical and numerical misrepresentation, having seen it in many forms. Or to put it differently: If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out. Cherry pickers didn't stay employed for long. Still, if OSF and its outside accountant can MATERIALLY contradict this, i.e., not pick cherries from their own orchard, more power to them.
Frankly, I will be very surprised if they do. Or even try. I think they'll stonewall, hoping that they won't have to explain anything. I think the end result of a real investigation might wind up involving the Oregon attorney general. For we nerds trained in financial statement analysis, the red flags are obvious and flapping in the wind. This isn't little stuff, it's big stuff. One pointed question: Did McDonald Jacobs actually verify the cash balance listed in its audit? It's standard practice, but did they do it?
Who knows, maybe my questions will be called racist? The answer to that one is easy: Money isn't black, white, yellow, or red. It's green. Where's the Money?
I wanted to add, at the risk of redundancy, that I fully understand how boring and impenetrable this stuff can be. In addition to wanting to go through the details, I wanted to present it in a form understandable to poets.
Unfortunately, that requires more words. If I'd done it in financial-ese, everyone's eyes would glaze over. It's the bane of every nerd's existence. There is nothing entertaining about it, so all I can do is hope that I've presented this in understandable terms.
I have an MBA from Wharton, and I still remember my first accounting test. Financial accounting intimidated the bejeesus out of me to the point of being actually frightened by it. No one was more shocked than me to a) have found that I really liked the subject, and b) to have scored a 93/100 on that test after having the dry heaves.
Then there is "managerial accounting," the stuff of debits and credits. Call it bookkeeping on steroids, and I hated it. But financial accounting? To my everlasting shock, the analytical power of accurate financial accounting is really astounding. They call it "accrual accounting," but I nicknamed it "a cruel accounting" until I mastered it. LOL
Oh, and then there was "advanced financial accounting," which was all about how to detect lies in financial statements. On the first day of the class, the professor gave us a short list of numbers. He told us to imagine that we were in senior management with stock options as part of compensation. So the quarterly numbers would count a lot, personally.
How much did you think the company earned per share, and what would you report? The class average was that the earnings were 48 cents/share, and that we'd report 52 cents. It was a very useful class. LOL
I started attending OSF back in the 80s, taking my then teen-age son to see "Midsummer Night's Dream" and a delightful Sheridan Restoration comedy. My husband and I have since attended OSF every year for decades, except for the pandemic closures, usually immersing ourselves in 5-6 plays and staying in B&Bs where we can talk theatre with other like-minded friends. Thank you for crystallizing in words the conflicted feelings we've had about the offerings from the past several years. We fall into that category you describe ... progressive mindset with a keen, open-minded interest in history. Some plays, such as "The African Company Presents Richard III" are powerful, and can present history in a way that is illuminating without co-opting a largely white audience into singing about how much we suck. There have been many contemporary social-justice plays we've enjoyed, but it does feel unbalanced in recent years. I have heard others express this same sentiment.
I share your sentiment, Lisa. Thanks so much for taking time with my essay.
Are you all racing to purchase your tickets to the newly announced 'Cyberland' film extravaganza? Featured are the AD's (OSF funded) vanity film projects that never got any traction despite her fully funded escapades to Sundance, etc: https://www.osfashland.org/productions/2023-digital/cyberland
Sigh, just 4 years ago OSF was the largest repertory theater company in the country. The annual 11 production repertoire featured critically acclaimed new plays and always - Shakespeare.
So very far to sink.
Oh God, I’ve just read the plot summaries of them all. So, yeah, no, I’ll pass.
"Featured are the AD's (OSF funded) vanity film projects"
Where did you find that all included films are projects of their Artistic Director? Based on your link, Nataki Garrett was listed on two of the five films. Is there another source you could share?
This must be the same doc - at the top it says "NOV 1, 2020 and ending OCT 31, 2021" If you have the $17M balance you have it! So sorry if I am misdescribing! The next newest Audit we heard just today "has not yet been completed" but it should be soon because last years was released in March.
I am just a 'Some Girl' artist who has also analyzed all the available OSF financials thru 2021 and SG, you get the prize! The 2021 Audit shows a balance of $17,403,992 (as well as an endowment of $38,664,051, but that is a topic for another tale). Where this money has gone will be revealed any day as the 2022 audit is coming! The Ashland community has been awash in details yet cowed by venomous and oh-so public accusation. The day of reckoning and accountability for those responsible for this tragedy is close.
Related to fiscal history, I was frustrated hearing excuses from current OSF leadership describing “years of structural deficits". So I did an analysis of the income-expenditures revenue stream using data from the 2010-2018 Annual Reports. Six of those years ended in deficit spending. (2018 being a bad smoke/many canceled performances season). Three of the years showed a profit. Total losses in 9 years equaled $9,917,301 and total profit was $7,274,015.
So, 9 years, 99 productions and a total expenditure of $307M yielded a loss of $2,642,286. I am not advocating for deficit spending. Nor am I denying that the prior AD pretty much had the run of the candy store. But a $2.6M loss over 9 years it not what it is made out to be by those who use it to defend the current administration, A.D. and Board alike. What they would give for a return to $40M annual budgets. Not on this watch!
I am acronym challenged. Every day, a new acronym. What does "A.D." mean? Artistic Director, maybe?
AD = Artistic Director
ED = Executive Director
One question I'd have is whether OSF has suffered from administrative top-heaviness. This puts me out on a limb, because I really don't know and don't pretend to know. Relative to, say, 20 years ago, prior to their having fired 12 people and laid off another 7, and announced that they weren't going to fill 18 positions, what did the upper echelon there look like, personnel-wise?
It would be useful to know, minus any mixing of apples (artistic direction) and oranges (money). I'm hyper aware that I'm commenting in a thread full of people who oppose their artistic direction. I am trying to stay away from any of those disputes and look at the organizational structure. I see a lot of criticism of increasing administrative overhead in universities, and wonder if the same phenomenon has been at play at OSF, and for how long.
To clarify, the artistic direction isn't the issue, it's the culture: politicized, censorial, rotten with Critical Theory and taken all together, pushing a monocultural agenda that has nothing to do with art, and everything to do with civic collapse. I wish artistic direction were the issue -- that gets sorted out at the box office and bank accounts fairly quickly, and it happens all the time at arts orgs. In this case, it's a virus that's infected the entire company. It will take quite some time to cure it.
To me, everything you've just mentioned falls into "artistic direction," or at least ends up there. In no way do I disdain those concerns, but approach this from another direction. To put it differently, if OSF were all-Shakespeare, or mostly Shakespeare with other plays in the same spirit, freely translated, and the same fiscal circumstances were present, I would have the same issues: "First you've got to get the facts; then you've got to face the facts."
To wit: I smell a rat. A big, furry shithouse rat. I even smell that rat's breath. OSF has burned through $17.4 million in cash in next to no time. They're now running to the Oregon Legislature for a spiff, after having scooped in quite a few millions from the feds. Please believe me, I am not stomping on your concerns as a poet. Without art, we're not human. That's not a throwaway line; I really believe it. (By the way, 99% of art is outside of the picture frames. I could go on and on about that.) I love art at the cellular level, and sometimes I think I'm more of an art appreciator than a lot of those who are artists by trade. To be human is to be an artist. Art is everywhere you look.
In any case, a real advantage of my nerd perspective is that it's much harder to argue with, at least if you don't torture Winston Smith into saying that 2 + 2 = 5. Mary, I am not in any way dismissing your perspective, but only asking that we not quibble about terminology. "Artistic direction" might not be the exactly correct label, but I think it's close enough for horseshoes.
This financial statement analyst is like a dog with numbers. Dogs smell the cheese from upstairs. I smell bad numbers from 300 miles away. Something stinks at OSF -- in the numbers, the boring shit -- and I smell it from here. They did themselves no favors by banning me from their Facebook page.
It's a difference with an actual distinction. "Artistic direction" has to do with play choice, generally. In this case, as the culture is based in Critical Theory and not art (hence the company's chilling mission statement) it presents a much larger, and far more concerning, problem. You can shorthand it with "artistic direction" if you'd like, though it doesn't come close to describing the intent and goals of leadership there. "Political agenda" is much more accurate, in the truest sense. Regardless, I'm super glad to have you on the team. As an addendum I agree that while the fictional Winston Smith would resist the equation you mentioned, the very real Winston Marshall would, too.
To this point - take the OSF Mission Statement listed on the 2021 (most recently available) 990 - it describes:
"Inspired by Shakespeare’s work and the cultural richness of the United States, we reveal our collective humanity through illuminating interpretations of new and classic plays, deepened by the kaleidoscope of Rotating Repertory."
Compare that to a recently published legal document filing with the National Labor Relations Board dated 1/23 describing the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as a "not-for-profit anti-racist social justice organization located in Ashland, Oregon, that presents plays in repertory.”
Mission creep or - Wait . . . what?! Nothing subtle about this attempted take over of a beloved 80+ year institution - once the largest repertory theater in the country!
Boy howdy they got the "not-for-profit" bit right.
Couldn't find the 2021 form. Do you have a link?
Correction! The 9 years of Annual reports are 2010-2018.
Annual reports as distinguished from IRS 990s?
From - https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/930407022
Scroll down to FISCAL YEAR ENDING OCT., 2021 PDF Audit and hit the green box titled AUDIT
This takes you to: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_audit/25273720211
which is the full IRS Audit of OSF for 2021 At least it does for me and I am a total neophyte!
Yes. If you want to see them Google 'OSF Annual Reports' and they are listed by year. They are part donor acknowledgement, part marketing, and part celebration of successes - listed with data regarding attendance compared to capacity for each production, etc. Much easier to read/interpret. One significant point of interest on the 990's is the listing of salaries for the top positions of leadership. You will see that the OSF AD is being VERY VERY well compensated and that was 2 years ago. It is my understanding that her salary has since increased significantly. Rather than a reduction, in keeping with the fiscal crisis, her salary was raised as she was given the additional title of Interim Executive Director when the board euphemistically "accepted the resignations" of the two other leading salaried employees, including the Director of Development, both announced in January.
The search term yields reports on something called OSF Heath Care.
Here is the website for the 2021 990- (pretty sure you have this but for others): https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/930407022
Try "Oregon Shakespeare Festival Annual Reports" - here is the website for the 2017 doc-
https://www.osfashland.org/-/media/pdf/Company/Financials/2017-Annual-Report.ashx?la=en&hash=66C67DDF952BC183D8EC892AB4DEEF7EAE167B02
The first link is not to the 2021 IRS Form 990. It's to their accountant's audit. I will look at the annual reports. My suspicion is that the numbers are from Form 990s, but I will check.
So sorry. These are "virgin" posts . . . SO NOT my territory!
Try- https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f990.pdf
That's a blank form. The latest IRS Form 990 for OSF that I could find is for 2020. On the principle that even the most dogged searcher (raising my hand) could miss something, I'd love to have later 990s. I cannot find them. I'd also love to have the accountancy's audit for 2022. Cannot find that either.
This is nerd-level stuff, and by definition it is boring as hell. Half of my job was searching for data, and getting low-level migraines doing it. I assure you that it isn't theoretical crapping around. The FY22 audit and/or the 2022 Form 990 (they are calendar years) are material to a rigorous analysis. Even the 2021 Form 990 would help. Your posts caused me to search, but that search was in vain. If you find those things, like Ross Perot, I am all ears.
Trust me, when it comes to this sort of stuff, I truly LOVE to be corrected. Not joking one bit.
Hey Some Guy: here’s hoping you turn out to be Oscar Wallace to the OSF Al Capone!
The OSF Endowment 990 for the fiscal year ending on Oct. 31, 2021 is here:
https://www.osfashland.org/-/media/pdf/Company/Financials/2020/OregonShakespeareFestivalEndowmentFundPublicDisclosureCopy10-31-21.ashx?la=en&hash=467B8D68028403A345150E1CB218CC3BF806670D
This is a link to the OSF 990 for the fiscal year ending Oct. 31, 2021. It's called the 2020 990, so the labeling is misleading. https://www.osfashland.org/-/media/pdf/Company/Financials/2020/OregonShakespeareFestivalAssociationPublicDisclosureCopy10-31-21.ashx?la=en&hash=3D42FA43343A32D812A298F3CC2A22BFDED0C8A7
Go to osfashland.com and, on that site, search for Annual Reports
or probably just annual report
So sorry, I hate oblique acronyms! Artistic Director is in many theaters (but not all) and OSF the primary decision maker regarding a theater's content/productions, tone setter- as in messaging/marketing, hiring of actors etc..
I have a lot of conflicted thoughts about Shakespeare, the Ashland Shakespeare Theater and the free
Shakespeare in the park, that at one point in time put Shakespeare all over Portland in Parks and cemeteries for free. To begin with there is the fascinating and as it turns out controversial issue of who actually wrote the plays. See www dot sirbacon dot org. I remember scouring the bookstores in Ashland for discussion of the authorship question; none of the bookstores had hardly anything. Francis Bacon himself wrote the plays to transform reality, thus putting him in line with the "woke culture" of today. Bacon was also an early proponent and founder of secret societies including the Rosicrucians and the Free Masons. His was the world of all powerful "philosopher kings" which ironically with the rise of antifa and the cultural revolutionaries, puts him right in the mix. That said, I agree that the cultural institutions have now taken on denouncing, belittling and dumbing down, the audiences that pay good money to see "plays". Another take-away from this cultural hellscape / dystopia is that "critical race theory" is adamantly opposed to "critical thinking" because Critical Thinking can empower individuals while "crt" locks people into a passive subservient mode. Just what the elites ordered! (hence the continued funding of this shit show.)
Nuanced article on Philanthropy.com: https://www.philanthropy.com/article/race-shakespeare-and-a-theaters-fight-to-survive . Paywall, but if you register you can see two articles for free.
Are you able to cut and paste the story in here?
I put a pdf in my publicly accessible OSF Reports folder. Please respect the author's/publisher's copyright: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0wb5h7idpoufvms/AADAz8qxSUXIOidIIpmKNbnqa?dl=0
He spent quite a bit of time in Ashland and with later followup.
It's not a bad article, but it blames racism toward black women in the end, which I reject out of hand. To conclude with Garrett saying "That doesn’t change the fact that bias is in the water," by my lights, renders anything she further says meaningless, and anything the journalist writes suspect. It's also deeply insulting and condescending, and a solid example of her failure to lead well.
I thought the article is much more nuanced than any of other things I've read. Yes , he closed with those self-serving generalizations from Nataki. It's what she's been saying since early 2021. No surprise. He reported things earlier in the article that I hope reveal more of the story to people on the outside. As to this and future reporting, I hope for progress, not perfection.
I’m a poet (a poetaster, anyway) and a programmer – but not remotely an accountant.
FWIW, I found this very entertaining, interesting, and even moving.
I remember trying to figure out how to establish an account, but I don't remember feeling a concern other than wanting to be truthful. Maybe that's because I've become socialized to accept personal intrusion. I hope not.
For those interested in diving into the most recent 2021 OSF 990 - be sure to look for the $42,9k compensation to the AD's husband for "CONTRACTED SERVICES". It is my understanding that this compensation continued into the following year - yet to be exposed in the pending '2022 audit.
I could not find the 2021 Form 990. Do you have a link?