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HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JULY 13, 2026 19 FOCUS | NONPROFITS funding for lighting, sound and caba- ret-space upgrades. Ticket sales and rental income remained essentially flat at about $5.4 million. Government support has also become less certain. Since May 2025, the Trump administration has canceled National Endowment for the Arts grants, though the impact has varied among Connecticut theaters. Goodspeed lost its NEA funding, but Logan said the direct financial impact was modest because the theater never relied heavily on federal support. "The deeper damage," she said, "is the signal it sends. When public funding decreases, organizations become increasingly more reliant on private philanthropy." The Shubert was largely unaffected because presenting theaters rarely receive NEA funding, McDonald said. Smaller organizations were hit harder. Pa'Lante Theatre Co., billed as Connecticut's first Afro-Latine black-box theater, lost its Water- bury space after federal funding cuts, barely a year after opening. It has continued operating as a traveling troupe. Even as financial pressures persist, audiences have continued to return. In his first season, in 2021-22, McDonald said the Shubert drew just 15,043 Broadway patrons across 25 performances. The season that just wrapped up drew 49,310 patrons across 38 performances, filling 76.4% of seats — the highest capacity in the theater's history. Rising costs Regardless of how theaters are funded, leaders say their biggest challenge is managing rising costs. "Don't ever buy anything that you have to feed," Fay said with a laugh. "Well, theaters — you have to feed them." Labor, materials, utilities and insur- ance keep compressing margins even as seats sell out. "If you aren't fundamentally resourced to weather the storm of the valley, it's hard to meet those expenses," Fried said. Historic venues, like the 150-year-old Victorian-style Good- speed Opera House, face especially steep maintenance costs. "Deferred maintenance cannot be deferred indefinitely," Logan said. The Bushnell-Warner partnership is one response to those pressures, but arrangements like it depend on a financially strong organization willing to absorb another theater's losses — not something every struggling venue can count on finding. So far, no other theaters have approached The Bushnell about similar arrangements, Fay said. "I think everybody wants to wait and see how this works over the next two, three, four years," he said. The Shubert benefits from a different kind of scale, as it is owned by the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts, an Ohio nonprofit that provides accounting, human resources, IT and ticketing support. "It's also like I have, in many ways, a thought partner," McDonald said. Not every theater can — or wants to — follow that model. Logan said merging back-office functions makes little sense for a producing theater like Goodspeed because fundraising, hiring and artistic planning are unique to each organization. Instead, producers tend to collaborate infor- mally, sharing marketing ideas and comparing notes with one another. Organizations without scale or reserves face difficult choices. In June, Waterbury's Seven Angels Theatre canceled its production of "Something Rotten!" citing weak ticket sales and declining financial support. Bridgeport's Downtown Cabaret Theatre closed after its June show, and Watertown's Phoenix Stage Co. shut down in January after 15 years. "The cost of producing world-class theater and maintaining these historic facilities is simply just rising faster than earned revenue can keep pace," Logan said. "And the future belongs to organizations that can balance artistic excellence, financial discipline and broad community support." CT THEATERS' FINANCIAL SNAPSHOT THE SHUBERT GOODSPEED BUSHNELL THEATRE MUSICALS FISCAL YEAR (2025) (2025) (2024) TOTAL REVENUE $36.9M $10.6M $14.1M TOTAL EXPENSES $33.8M $7.7M $15.4M SURPLUS/(DEFICIT) $3.1M $2.9M ($1.3M) PRIOR-YEAR SURPLUS/(DEFICIT) ($1.7M) ($170K) ($1.75M) CONTRIBUTIONS & GRANTS $9.6M $4.7M $4.8M TICKET/EARNED REVENUE $26.3M $5.4M $7.3M NET ASSETS $69.9M $19.9M $28M Source: IRS Form 990 filings THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 17 AQUA TURF CLUB | 5-8 PM THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 17 AQUA TURF CLUB | 5-8 PM VISIT HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM/HBJ-EVENTS OR SCAN HERE FOR TICKETS *2025 HONOREES PICTURED ABOVE PRESENTED BY TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW! TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW! TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW! TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW! SUPPORTING SPONSORS MAJOR SPONSOR