Update from Stage Door Players

WOW! What a year 2020 has been for all of us!

Most of you that we know, as well as our friends and family, are really hoping that this all goes away sometime soon! Unfortunately, not soon enough for most of us!

This makes it difficult for all of the theaters and Stage Door Players is no different. This year, we have had a loss of 55% in our Revenue stream. Sixty-six percent (66%) of our income comes from Ticket Sales and Season Subscribers. Our Board of Directors have had to make some tough decisions. In March, we began to cut expenses, we released our part-time person and cut as much of our expenses as possible. Earlier this Summer, we cut the hours and salaries of both our Artistic and Managing Directors to half-time staff. This month, since we see no opportunity for a play until after the first of the year, the toughest decision that we had to make was to furlough Robert, our Artistic Director, effective September 1st.

We have asked all of our Season Subscribers to Donate the balance of their Season Tickets back to the theater, or to call and discuss with us how they would like for us to handle the balance of their season tickets. Many of you – over 52% – have responded, and out of those, 92% have Donated your tickets back to us. Your donation will help carry us through to the other side of all of this!

The reason that we need a response from all Season Ticket holders is that we need to know what funds are available to the theater over the next few months. When Season Tickets are purchased, those funds are released PER show. Since they are on hold, we need to understand if they can be used toward keeping the theater moving forward during this hard time.

Those of you that have not responded, please send back your form that we mailed to you, call the office at 770-396-1726 X6 and leave a message, OR email Debbie@stagedoorplayers.org to let us know how to handle your tickets by September 1st. We also created a new donation program that we have released to our Season Subscribers called SDP SuperStars! After September 1st, if we have not heard from you, we will assume that you want to Donate your tickets back to the theater. At that time, we will convert them to a Donation and you will receive a letter by the end of the month that will include a thank you and a Tax letter for your Donation.

Our Board of Directors held a retreat late last Fall and had set their Strategic Plan and Vision. Although we have all been sidelined with COVID-19, we still have our Mission to Engage, Inspire, Educate, and Entertain. Our efforts over the next few months are to actively work on initiatives to achieve these goals amidst the current landscape and beyond. This will entail diversifying our programming, beyond our regular play season, to include more Community centered activities and local involvement for patrons of all ages.

Although this has been a challenging time financially, it is also an exciting time for us to develop more diversified programming for the future. We’re looking forward to bringing you fun, laughter, joy and thought-provoking programs through the art of theater as soon as we can safely return! We will continue to create a plan forward and we hope to see you all very soon!

Watch for our new Donation opportunity for all patrons that we will be announcing in the next couple of weeks. But for those of you that would like to help support the theater because you LOVE our theater –  you may DONATE here.

In the meantime, please:
Be Careful. Be Healthy. Be Safe.
Stage Door Players Board of Directors and Staff