Watertown-based New Repertory Theater needs an injection of money soon or will have to shut down permanently.
The company, based at the Mosesian Center for the Arts, announced this week that it was suspending operations indefinitely, and unless the theater company can raise $200,000 over the next few months it will close permanently, Jo Trompet, chairman of New Rep’s board of directors, told the Boston Globe.
Even before the pandemic, New Rep faced a budget deficit, which former-Artistic Director Michael Bobbitt said would take a number of years to make up. The COVID-19 restrictions meant the New Rep had to cancel about a season and a half of performances.
The company also faces uncertainty about its primary performance space, the theater at the Mosesian Center for the Arts, which is undergoing upgrades.
New Rep, which was founded in 1984, has an annual operating budget of about $2 million, and just part way through 2021 it had lost more than half that amount the Globe reported. The full-time staff has been cut from 10 people to three, including interim executive artistic director M. Bevin O’Gara. Bobbitt left in February to become Executive Director of the Mass. Cultural Council.
See more information about New Rep at https://www.newrep.org/
See the Boston Globe article by clicking here.
I wouldn’t donate to the theater. They have become so woke that they had a terrible performance of Hair 2 years ago. The show REPEATEDLY said the word F–K during it. It was so unnecessary and took away from the performance. It showed a lack of creativity in portraying the original production. It set in my mind that I would not return for any future shows if that is the way they want to run things.
I first saw the traveling production of Hair when I was around 15 years old, and loved it. The last time I saw it was at the New Rep, and now I am 65 years old. I was so glad to see how much it was like the original!! You just can’t “play” with good theatre. Thanks New Rep.
How sad. You definitely shouldn’t donate after such an unforgivable offense.
Sarcasm aside, profanity turns many people off, which is not what New Rep needed to have happen. I tried to tell Michael Bobbitt this when I reviewed Stupid Fucking Bird, a play he was very fond of and insisted on adding to the program despite a plethora of the F word. He did not want to listen.
Dorothy Mohr