About um Jake Arkey, our director's arrival, was the sold-out student matinee of Little Women, which just happened a few weeks ago.

And we anticipate we are uh have sold out also the student matinee of a driving beat, the upcoming matinee.

And um already uh people are realizing Jake is here and the Theater Works matinees, student matinees are happening, and we worked with Nicole, pardon me if I mispronounced this name, Chu Weng, the ED of Pathwise, to provide 34 comp tickets so they can bring a student a group of eighth graders to the show.

And in case you don't know what Pathwise is, they they're an organization that aims to close the educational gap for underrepresented middle schoolers.

So they'll be in attendance at Mountain View.

Also, many of the shows that we programmed last season at the Center for Performing Arts achieved really strong programmatic success.

King James, which started my first season that I programmed by Rajiv Joseph, won numerous Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Awards, including Best Production for the entire Bay for theaters of 300 plus seats.

And that was in addition to some other awards.

And then at that same ceremony, recent Tony Award winner, Francis Ju, was awarded Best Featured Actor for Tiger Style by Mike Liu, which performed at the Mountain View Center the prior season.

And we have a long history with Francis.

We're already talking about how we can bring him back.

And I just felt like Francis embodies our locally grown, nationally known ethos mantra slogan.

I'm not sure what word to use, but um, so that was incredibly exciting to us to um to know that the last time Francis was on a regional stage was here in Mountain View on our stage, and we're looking to bring him back.

So also uh the Heart Sellers, which we programmed, which was by Lloyd Sun, saw a 10% increase in tickets uh from Cupertino Households, which is a city with a predominantly AAPI population.

And then we closed out the season with the longest title in the world, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean Collin, a new musical that had lyrics by trans icon Shakina, and so through that we saw outreach to the LBGTQIA plus organizations and a partnership with a Broadway producer, which is still an ongoing conversation.

Um then, of course, in 2025, Hershey Felder played to approximately 16,000 patrons over four weeks.

Um, and I thought this was fun for comparison.

The Shark Tank in San Jose has just over 17,500 seats.

And he's going to be back on the Mountain View Stages um this in the early in the next year.

Um our new works grew substantially in 2025.

We expanded the New Works Festival, which we do in August to include an international component.

Um we also presented the first readings from our Susan Fairbrook Core Writers Group, which is made up of uh local playwrights.

Jeffrey Lowe's gonna speak a little bit more about that, so I won't go into detail.

And as part of that festival, we had the Tony Award-winning creators of Come From Away, David Hine and Irene Sankoff in residence working on their new musical about autism, entitled Vienna, and they're gonna be uh Come From Away is the show that will close out the season on the Mountain View stages.

So that was exciting to have all these um renowned artists in our mix creating art with all of our local talent.

It's it was really a lovely season.

Um you asked about some of the setbacks.

So I will tell you because you know.

They happened.

So one of them, of course, was the withdrawal of the grant from the National Endowment of the Arts, like many, many arts organizations.

We lost our funding, a portion of funding for the Susan Fairbrook Core Writers Group, and in part that was because to receive those funds.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this.

So I'm to receive those funds.

We had to agree to just adjust our programming to align with the goals of the current administration, and we were not willing to do that.

So we went without that funding to continue the program.

Um also I will say that the change to the resident company agreement with Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, both the weeks restrictions, the 65% capacity goal, I have had an impact for me on in terms of what I can program where.

And so one of the reasons these changes present a challenge is that we're a mission-driven, not-for-profit theater company.

So we programmed to meet our budgetary goals to be fiscally responsible, but we do not program the art to make a profit.

That's not the point of what we're doing.

And as this is a historically predominantly white theater company that is committed to diversifying our audience and programming so that more of our community can see themselves reflected on our stages and have access to our work.

We must program shows that are artistically valuable and aligned with our mission, and probably won't meet the 65% capacity at this time as we build towards that audience.

So, an example of how that impacts programming.

So this year in our season, we are doing primary trust by Ebony Booth.

It is the 2024 Pulitzer Prize winning play.

Also, it is one of the top 10 plays presented in the country, and we're doing that in our Palo Alto theater space, because that terrific play seemed unlikely to reach the capacity we would need in the audience.

So we're doing it in our smaller space.

So that's just I wanted to give you a concrete example of how when we look at the two spaces, we have to make choices based on what serves the community and also meets goals.

And we're currently assessing the financial implications of the limited run on little women.

I think Lorraine may have some information about that at this point.

I know we're still closed, we're still assessing.

So we'll tell you about that.

All of that said, I'm so excited truly about the work we are doing and the strides we have made in just such a short time.

And I want our goal is to fill the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts.

That is our goal.

We want to fill it with people for every show that we do.

We want to make that the place to go to see exceptional professional theater.

And I think we share that goal.

So I really look forward to working with Teresa to working with all of you about creative solutions and ways in which we can achieve that goal together.

So I am now, if it's okay if we can do questions at the end, only because we're gotta open the show.

And I won't do my monologue that I prepared in interest of time.

But um another one.

But I want to hand it off to um uh in the in the questions you asked about structural changes.

So we have another wonderful structural change, which is we have parted ways with our outside marketing firm and brought our local community-based marketing efforts in-house under the leadership of marketing director Lorraine Vanrod, and she will speak with you next.

And then at the end, I'm super happy to answer um questions.

Thank you very much.

Sorry.

Hi, all.

Yes, I am Lorraine Vanderground.

Uh Lorraine Vanrod, the uh director of marketing, she, her pronouns.

Um, I would love to talk to you all a little bit about some data regarding our current audience.

Um before parting ways with Swival Arts Consulting, we did work with them on some analysis of our existing audience and compared it to some sample arts uh database, which uh comprises of 10 Bay Area theater companies varying in sizes and locations.

Um, and some key takeaways from that data is that 82 percent of our ticket buyers live within 15 miles of the Mountain View Center, um, in line with the aggregate of Bay Area audiences as outlined in the arts database while becoming more diverse.

Theaterworks audience is predominantly white, um, with approximately 22 percent of the Theaterworks audience coming from BIPOC communities, and the breakdown of that is the AAPI community, 14%, uh Latinx six percent, and two percent from the black community.

Um, also in line with the arts database, Theaterworks audience tend to um skew older and with more empty nesters and retirees.

However, this phase of life analysis is not consistent across Theaterworks productions with younger professionals and parents with children becoming a higher percentage of attendees at works such as our annual holiday show and most recently little women, which just closed a few weeks ago.

You know, how has this changed in the last five years?

While overall the overall age and demographic uh representation has remained materially constant, the percentage of BIPOC audience has increased from 14% to 22% in this time period.

Um and some strategies uh that uh we've been using to attract a more diverse and younger audience to further reach our uh younger audience.

We offer $10 student tickets to both high school students and college students, and this is outside of the student mountaineers, um, and we have had regular attendance from Laney College at Foothill College and San Jose State University, being regular uh patrons.

Um in addition to our programming department partnering with a range of communities such as CATS, which is contemporary arts and theater scene, inact arts, and SC Pride, which is specifically focused outreach, and we offer 20 community tickets uh to our main stage productions to these communities.

Um we strive to represent a range of voices in our communities each season by upliving voices from diverse communities.

Uh Giovanna made a number of shows that uh we did in this past season that represent um these communities.

Um also I wanted to talk a little bit about our social media platforms that we use.

Uh we primarily use Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

And um what has been particularly successful in engaging audiences is that our meta-ads have brought in 18% of our single ticket campaign sales, and our 24 25 season meta campaigns had generated 25 million impressions.

Um so that is what I'm going to talk about in terms of our audience.

Now I'm going to pass it on to our board chair, Katie Lovett.

Okay, hi everyone.

Hello.

Um my name is Katie.

I am sharing the chair position this year with Alex Perez, who could not be here, but nice to meet you all.

Um, this is actually a really wonderful moment for me personally, sort of a full circle moment.

Um I actually performed with Theaterworks a very long time ago at the Mountain View Center, which included swimming in the pit.

So that's a fun story asking later.

Yeah, yeah, I don't think you knew that either, but yes, um, so happy to share that story.

Um, and then Theaterworks at Mountain View Center is also where my five-year-old saw his first live theater show, um, Little Women, which is referred to in our house as The Four Little Ladies.

How many times I correct him?

So, anyways, it's it's really an honor to be here.

I love to present on behalf of Theaterworks and love the partnership that we have with Mountain View.

So, speaking a little bit about our organization and some of the changes that we've seen, I feel like we're at this like really wonderful moment where things feel like they are sort of settling and coming together in a really wonderful way.

So, Phil, who is on the screen and will be chatting with us shortly, um, has recently rejoined the organization.

Um, so hi Phil.

Um, he was our executive director from I believe 2006 to 2022.

Um, and after a couple of years of of some tumultuous leadership, Phil has agreed to rejoin us for um the next few years and and really help us get more.

I guess operational sustainability and best practices, and really set us off on a on a more solid footing, which I am super excited about, very encouraged by, and I think also just speaks to um you know the the value that that he places on the organization and the impact that we can have in our community, that he is willing to come back to us and reinvest his talents and his time in this way.

You also met Lorraine earlier.

We have brought our marketing organization back in-house, which I think is really critical.

Because while Swybell Arts is an amazing organization, they're not based here.

Know our communities.

They don't know how our various populations engage with the arts, the types of outreach and channels that people respond to.

And by bringing marketing in-house, I think we can more effectively engage with those audiences and communicate what we bring to the community in that way.

And as a former educator, I am super excited that we now have an education program again.

So I am quite excited about the work that Jake is doing already to rebuild and re-establish.

We've also been talking a lot about the things that we could do and are planning to do once we have our foundation back in order.

And I'm not gonna like steal his thunder right now, but I think it's pretty exciting.

And so I think all of that gives me a lot of hope and optimism for what we're gonna accomplish as an organization together, and also here in Mountain View.

Another one of the questions that you asked was do you have any board members who live in Mountain View?

And currently the answer to that question is no.

We are aware that's a gap.

I will also say that our board in general is smaller than it has historically been.

We have had a number of um longtime board members rotating off or terming out essentially.

And so we actually are in the process of recruiting and bringing more people to our board to fill gaps that we have identified, both in terms of geographic representation, but also in skill set representation and and how people themselves choose to identify to make sure that we are as diverse as a board as we would like to be.

With that being said, we have definitely had board members in the past who are Mountain View residents.

For example, um our current HR advisor, who is a former board member is a Mountain View resident.

We also do have several uh board members who work in Mountain View.

My husband has worked in Mountain View for almost 20 years.

Um, and so Mountain View is definitely a place that we are proud to call home.

Um, and I I noticed that you all were talking about volunteer um needs and committee placements and and gaps that you all are looking to fill.

If you have any recommendations of Mountain View residents that you think we should talk to as people who could potentially serve on our board, no, I would be happy to connect them with our committee on trustees because we are indeed actively recruiting, and who better to know who is plugged into Mountain View and the arts than you all.

Um so I will take this opportunity to do a little bit of a shameless plug.

Thank you for indulging me.

Okay, happy to answer more questions um later, but with that, I will pass it over to Jeffrey.

Thank you.

Hi, everyone, good to see you folks again or new forums, to meet you.

My name is Jeffrey Law.

My pronouns are he him his.

I am the associate producer of casting and literary management at TheaterWorks, um, working with Given and the Artistic Department.

Um, I want to talk a little bit about sort of the communities we serve and how we do that to the best of our ability.

Uh we serve our communities through uh three core arms of our programming, our main stage programs, our educational programming, and our new works available.

For our main stage season, we are committed to producing the works of a wide range of voices and seek to uplift a tapestry of perspectives reflective of our Silicon Valley home.

Beyond our audience, we serve as an artistic home for artists, professionals, volunteers, and supporters from across the peninsula.

We are also proud to provide on our mainstage show, services, accessibility services to those in the community who need it, including audio described performances, open captioned performances, and ASL performances.

Um the show that I'm running to uh driving beat at 7:30, our first preview.

Uh I've been thrilled to be the uh the director of this piece in our sort of re-introduction to the second stage, and also we realize in that thrust space, it's been a real adventure to figure out the best way to have ASL interpreters in placements for people, but it's really important to us.

And we're so thrilled that we're gonna have performances for both ASL and open captioning, where last I checked, almost like 70% of the audience will be those services, which is really cool.

Um, for those in the community who are interested in learning more about the work that we do and the artists creating it, we provide free behind-the-scenes discussions with our uh weekly post-show discussions with actors and also um our pre-show behind the scenes chat with directors, designers, or playwrights, depending on the show, which we have on the balcony of the Mountain View second stage before a preview where they get to um the audiences and get to see you know our crew members getting set up for the stage and doing sound checks and all that.

It's a lot of with our new works programming.

We've been thrilled to have year-long residencies with local Bay Area Playwrights through our students and Fairbrook Co-Writers Group.

We just completed our second cohort and we're in the midst of getting things ready with our third cohort.

Um, as Giovanna mentioned, we did lose a portion of a large portion of our funding that the NEA was supporting.

So we're trying to continue that programming and restrategize how to make sure this can be supports what we're doing and continue.

Um, but these cohorts have consisted of um local playwrights, and these playwright groups are multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multiracial, and gender diverse, and the conversations they have with each other over the year, developing one brand new work each has been really exciting to be a part of.

Um, something that really brings my heart so much joy, and um it seems to bring a lot of people joy as I've heard other people speak, is the return of our education programming with our director of education, Jake Arkey.

Uh, he's relaunched a number of programs.

Um, my favorite program being our Young Playwrights Project, which has um local playwrights in residents going into schools and working with drama classes and high schools and teaching them the basics of writing a 10-minute play, and it all culminates with us hiring professional directors and actors to perform stage readings with a handful of those students' plays.

Um we also took the young playwrights project and transformed it or um iterated on it, I should say, to um create the senior playwrights project, which is something that we piloted at Avenida senior um senior facility.

Um, and we are working to um expand that within our offices as well.

And uh basically, we had a wonderful group of seniors who were very excited to uh take their hand at writing plays.

Many of them were actually writers in their own right in fiction or poetry or other things, and they were very interested in it.

So it was a real thrill.

Um also we have our children's healing project that is serving young patients at both the Lucille Pecker Children's Hospital and the El Camino Health in Mountain View.

Uh we invest in our community offering free tickets to Mountain View Schools and ticket vouchers for charity auctions to Mountain View nonprofits, such as the Mount View Sister City Affiliation, Springer Elementary School, Stevenson PACT Foundation, uh, Mountain View Educational Foundation, Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, Gabriela Mistral Elementary School PTA, and the Jose Antonio Vargas Bank.

Um, in addition to this, we also have really enjoyed a wonderful partnership with Enact Arts.

Uh, they've partnered with us on a production in the past.

They have provided support for our recent New Works Festival where we worked on a brand new play by the Playwright Geek the Ready called the Employee Dharma Handbook.

And also they are launching their own international playwrights, playwrights uh competition, and our founding artistic director Robert Kelly is on the advisory committee and also one of the judges of that playwright.

Uh the artistic and marketing departments work closely with the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce.

Uh, Theaterworks participated in the Mountain View Art and Wine Festival this past year and was one of the main sponsors of the very first LGBTQ IA fired event in Mountain.

Uh, our education director has been in communication with Cindy Newen, director of curriculum instruction and assessment educational services at the Mount View Wismans School District, and they are facilitating introductions to establish partnerships with Mountain View Schools.

As always, although we're so happy with everything we've been doing so far, um, we're really excited to learn about new potential partnerships, and we can always grow and do more.

So we are what we welcome any and all introductions for collaboration with the wide range of the Mount View communities.

We believe being a resident in our communities is central to our part, uh to our role, and welcome more opportunities to collaborate, support, and partner.

So much for everything.

And with that, I think I get the chance to toss it to the screen and toss it over to Phil.

Oh, he's there.

He's there.

Right on cue.

Greetings from Seattle.

Thank you for making it possible to virtually join you.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Um I am Phil Santora.

He, him, executive director.

Um, I have proof you can leave.

Um, I am and Theaterworks is full of boomers.

Is a boomerang, we have board members.

Um, it's an organization that people have invested in deeply and care about, and I'm honored to be back with it.

Uh, the first thing I'm going to chat about, I'm going to get to numbers in a second because putting numbers here at the end of a presentation is always a good idea.

But first, I want to talk a little bit about some of the additional benefits we bring, think we believe our organization brings to the Mountain View community.

As a resident company, Theaterworks creates work in our community for our community.

We hire local artists, performers, educators, staff, crew, employing hundreds of local community members each year.

Unlike, for example, a national tour of a musical.

Let's be honest, Hamilton moves in, it's amazing, it does five weeks, but then it gets on a truck and it goes.

Our impact lasts well beyond the performances on the stage.

Our work is on the stage in the schools and throughout the community, and it's felt year-round.

That's the advantage of a resident, not in the terms we're using it in the home company and resident company concept, but of someone who is actually in your community creating work in your community specifically for your community.

Theaterworks main stage shows serve Mountain View residents.

Um over the past three years, over 2200 Mountain View households have attended at least one theater work show.

Uh, we're an economic driver, annually bringing tens of thousands of patrons to downtown Mountain View to dine and shop.

Uh, we've discussed the great Hershey Felder, 16,000 patrons over four weeks.

Um, we've been discussed also giving out free tickets.

Um, let me slide down here.

Thank you.

Uh, we've been a part of the Mountain View community since the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts opened in 1991.

Over the years, well, well over one million individuals have engaged in Theater Works productions at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.

This partnership has been central to both the city and to Theaterworks for decades, and we've grown together through our mutual partnership, making each other stronger.

To give a few more specifics about our partnerships with Mountain View.

Actually, I think Jeffrey covered our partnerships with Mountain View beautifully.

Thank you, Jeffrey.

Um, I'm gonna actually jump ahead and also keeping an eye on time.

I'm gonna talk a little bit about financials because I know everybody loves numbers.

Um, is how do you prepare your current uh break-even?

How do you budget for a break-even?

What methods do you make sure our revenues match our expenses?

We prepare our annual budget each spring based on income projections on historic based on historical data, taking into account changes in plans for the upcoming year, and projection based on programming selection.

Expenses are crafted each year based on projected cost of running each department and supporting each program.

Any gap is then closed through working on addition for additional sources of revenue and looking for economies that can be identified on the expense side.

The proposed budget is reviewed in detail by the board finance committee, reviewed and approved by the entire board.

Monthly reports are then delivered throughout the year to staff and board who monitor any deviations from the plan and make course corrections as needed to steer us towards maintaining a balanced budget for the year.

Um, as to how we make sure our overhead is spent effectively and not exorbitantly.

Our auditors compare our overhead versus um overhead versus programming ratios to other peer organizations in the Bay Area.

In addition, we take um national surveys to field stake ourselves, the most noticeable being the Theater Communications Group annual fiscal survey, which has hundreds of people responding.

And so we field stake ourselves against our peers as well as having internal conversations about how our resources are being spent.

Okay, um, and that's a quick overview of finances because I think that's enough on numbers.

Uh to wrap us up and talk a little bit about strategic planning in the future.

I would like, oh, I apologize.

I'm jumping around my notes.

You asked if there were any anticip unanticipated expenses.

We moved out of our home at the Sabrato Center for Nonprofits this year and moved into a new home in Redwood City and Shasta Street.

That relocation was expensive luckily we were able to fund that exclusively with outside of operating revenues covering both tenant improvements and moving costs.

So the move itself had no economic impact on our programmatic um resources with that I'm gonna hand it over to Gio to talk a little bit about strategic planning and wrap us up.

I'm just so happy to tell you we are finally able to do a strategic plan because we have enough stability to be out of crisis mode.

Yes it is um and so um we are launching our strategic planning process in the in fall of oh now we've started hi sorry just looked at my notes um and we are doing that under the guidance of uh planning consultant Nancy Ragey and so this plan will explore obviously our mission our vision our programming structure and because um we now have stability with the return of Phil Santora and our education department all the things we've done we're actually able to look ahead um for a three year plan and so we want to adopt the plan by the end of this season so we're all working together to do that and I I would also love to say to you much along the lines what Jeffrey said since becoming artistic director and moving here full time with no warning by the way it was on Friday hey we need you and then I had to move finally I'm also finding time to integrate into the community and to meet people and to breathe so if there's anyone you think I should meet or want me to meet I am I am on a listening tour to find out what who's in the community what the community's excited about and how I can better serve the community through my program.

So I will I will talk to anyone at ungodly hours of the morning even 7 30 a.m I'll be there um but I would I do want you to know that this is um I'm so um excited to be in in this community um I've spent my life as a freelance director so this is really the first time I've had a home in home and so I I'm it's meaningful to me to serve my community and I'm looking for ways to do that.

I'm ready we're ready for questions.

I if it's all right I'm gonna release Jeffree because Jeffrey's opening is at isn't 7 30 and I'll do my best to cover any questions that might better have been answered by Jeffrey.

But Jeffrey, we want to see you at the show thank you all so much.

And uh any questions you have I'll do my best to answer and also you have experts in the room who might know the answer better than I.

I don't have all my questions I have one question.

So I I um I'm Valerie um nice to meet you I um I have recollections and this could be from too much of the way back machine of coming here and seeing groundbreaking performances of uh Bat Boy musical um daddy long legs the musical um and with packed houses um and um I have this summer been um able to see productions in other theaters in the Bay Area West Valley and South Bay Musical Theater and Lyric theater um also had packed houses I had great pleasure of seeing um the five and dime show far from uh even halfway full and so I'm trying to kind of get my head on is like I've seen theater Works do these shows and others that I don't even remember the names of here.

Packing the house, plays as well as musicals um and I'm seeing other theaters starting to get patrons back with butts and seats.

Where do you think the it's maybe more of a I think it is a strategic question?

Like, where do you see like where theater works is catching up?

And I also saw Spelling Bee, Theater Works did in Palo Alto, which is also packed.

So I I um so um, and that's kind of one of the shows you were mentioning that will bring audiences in, they know spelling bee, but it was put on at a smaller venue.

Um very warm, if you remember that being very warm.

But uh, so like kind of um like what kind of things could you envision bringing in?

Because I would think, like when you talked about the big musicals that will bring people in, I would think Sally B, but then you did a smaller venue, and then other shows that I have seen um more recently from Theaterworks are fantastic, but they're you're not getting it's not it doesn't seem to be filling the seats.

So what kind of strategic things are you doing to bring the people back to these outstanding productions?

Um you are asking like the question.

This is what we talk about all the time, and um I may defer to Lorraine who has more information on this, but what I can say is uh Theaterworks.

What was our um subscriber number pre-pandemic?

Pre-pandemic around 9,000.

And now we're up to about 42.

So um uh 40, I'm sorry, 4200.

4200.

So um, and we've seen substantial growth just since uh programming.

So we did suffer a major setback, and and our subscribers right now are we have more subscribers than some larger organizations like ACT.

So it it's it is a problem.

Um we do tend to have fuller houses in the smaller theater, of course, because that's the size.

We made a commitment.

Many other theaters I will say have done things such as performing um only Thursday, Friday, Saturday, you know, doing the peak nights.

We are committed, um, part of it is serving a subscriber base, and part of it is we have we feel we have for and not-for-profit enough audience attending Tuesday through Sunday night to provide a valuable service to the community.

We could condense, uh, we've talked about that.

We've chosen not to do that, and part of it is also um as an economic driver, even if it's 200 people coming to a show on Tuesday, that's 200 people having dinner or looking around, like that felt important to us.

Um so that's one of the reasons is we're right now committed to the number of performances in the week.

We're committed um to many things.

Can I speak a little bit?

I think you should.

Thank you.

I think probably wise.

So earlier we did, we were mentioned that uh for a period of time uh just recently we had been managed and led by an outside consulting firm that was uh located on the east coast, and that affected our ability to really be in the community and have uh uh true marketing strategies that are focused here in the community and now bringing it back in house, which just started is um is one of the uh one of the things that we saw that um we felt first there was a lot of institutional knowledge that was lost um uh post-pandemic, and so bringing me back, and we have a couple other um key marketing folks that were from the before times and the Dunny Long Legs years, and and um obviously our focus is to get back those those numbers, but I think that um the um the revenue and the the the houses that you've seen is is uh a bit a reflection of having a very uh um uh a very uh knowledgeable outside marketing firm.

Um they were great in in terms of uh carrying us through post-pandemic, but when it came time to really focus on the community, that's where there were some serious voids that needed to be filled.

And and that's what we addressed just recently.

So um, so of course, our hope is to to bring that back those folks into the and fill those seats.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Yeah.

That's the only question I have so far.

If you have any answers to that question you asked, please email me, because it truly is the question.

So I'm gonna actually kind of add to that as well.

Um, so I come from a performing arts background, I run my own arts organization as well, both from a presenting side and arts education.

And I mean, looking at your numbers and you know, leaving aside even the outlier of Hershey Felder, like selling 6,000 seats, 7,000 seats is you know no small thing.

That's that's a lot, especially in this day and age.

But then when you look at your percentages, you know, it's 36, 37, and um, you know, pretty much except for the one outlier under 50%.

And I'm just wondering like, you know, I know when we're programming shows, our goal is to hit the 70% mark, you know, sometimes even higher because we're only doing one or two shows.

But when you're going across, you know, many shows, I know 70% is uh like a target goal that you want to hit within a few um few percentage points.

So um, so I'm just wondering like why, like you said, the obvious thing to reduce shows is um not being considered, and because I've seen like even in the last three years, I've been working with Opera San Jose, and I've seen that they've not only um reduced their shows, um, like they've gone down from six to five, but they've also like eliminated their weeknight shows, and um the idea has been like those people that would have come on weekdays will now just come on weekends, and from a morale point of view for the artists also it's just so much more encouraging to have a semi-full house as opposed to you know a relatively empty house.

So I'm just wondering what the impetus is to keep, I would I would say specifically maybe the weeknight shows or so many shows and have a lower percentage.

We are just so you know, we were uh Phil, did you want to have an answer?

Do you have an answer?

For a second, I could.

Um Yeah, of course, yes, we are very cognizant of the concept of capacity and empty seats.

Um, there are a couple things.

First of all, last year was GEO's first year, and trying things, learning what's going to sell, what isn't going to sell, how it's going to connect to this community is part of the strategic learning process.

I mean, I've worked with three artistic directors of theater works in the last five years.

I worked with Kelly, I worked with Tim Bondon.

I'll have a different voice.

Every time an artistic director turns over, we have to rediscover the audience and how the programming lands and make decisions.

We're learning things.

The second thing I'll say about capacity that I think is important to understand is the way the model was built is we had a very solid subscriber base, 8, 9,000 people before COVID.

And word of mouth, every word of mouth is the best of advertising any of us could ever have.

I saw a great show last night.

Everyone goes.

Um losing about half that subscriber base has pulled down on our ability to do word of mouth.

And we would front load subscribers, so there was more single ticket growth at the end.

That's not a problem unique to theater works.

I just did 15 months in Baltimore as an interim CFO at the largest theater in Baltimore.

I've worked in the last three years of theaters all over the country, and also came from a major conference last week.

Subs are down.

And what we as a field are doing is relearning our model and changing our marketing initiatives and rebuilding.

At this point, there are patrons like our worst attended show is Wednesday matinees, but for a few patrons, that's an accessibility issue.

They don't want to come out at night, they don't like to come out on the weekends.

So we're trying to figure out the model as we go into strategic planning, it's all on the table.

Um, and that's the work we're doing now.

And I would I want to add to that that part of the awesome responsibility and part of the beauty of theater works, is that uh we not only serve these communities, but we actually serve the greater theatrical community through the country.

And as I said, internationally, we're starting to, and part of that is because um Phil and I were just um at two national conferences, the Lourde Conference in DC, and then we were at the National Alliance for Musical Theater in New York.

And the number of people who approached us, because as other theaters to fill the houses to do all these things, started programming predominantly white created art that is um, you know, like the surefire clue or whatever.

We didn't.

Last year, when most theaters were contracting, we doubled down and did two world premiere musicals, one on your stage led by a trans artist.

We did that knowing that that could be divisive in the community, could perhaps even be dangerous.

We did it because it was important and because we stood by that work regardless of how it sold.

We happened to be tremendously successful, exceed the goals we set for it, which again are beyond capacity, but it exceeded our goals.

So we're serving, we're every time we look at a piece of art, we're saying, how do we serve this community?

And what responsibility do we have as a professional theater in the bay developing new work for art that will transcend this moment?

And that's why Francis Jew comes to our theater.

That's so it's uh it's a luxury that some other theaters don't have that reach and that extension extension, and it's also a responsibility.

So I balance all of we all know that ticket sales don't really pay for a profession, and so economic viability isn't just based on how many people are in the house, there's other ways of raising funding.

So I just wondered how your fundraising is going, like with foundations with your gala or however else you're doing it.

Oh, yeah.

I was thinking again, having just come from Baltimore where they get a half million dollars a year in government funding, that would be lovely.

Uh, we get zero dollars in direct government funding to cover operating expenses.

So um Theaterworks is predominantly uh an individual giving supported organization.

Uh foundations uh not only um I think there was a stat around 90% of the money given by the 25 largest foundations.

Um I can never remember it's 85% or 95%.

So I'm gonna meet in the middle at 90, but I think the point is still the point, which is 85 or 95% of the cash maybe five years ago given by the 25 largest foundations in the Bay Area leaves the Bay Area, yeah.

Uh, people here interested in solving world hunger and God bless solving world hunger 100%, but there's not an investment in the community as much.

Um there's been an additional change recently, completely understandable among a number of the major foundations to ship funding out of the Bay Area where there are a lot of philanthropic resources and focus more on the Central Valley.

Where the funds are to be blunt more needed, much as I that doesn't help me pay my bills, but I do agree the need in Central Valley is great.

So we have seen a shift away from some funding as the foundation funding has moved either international or to Central Valley and dug deeper into individual support throughout the valley, which is to be honest, where the philanthropic gifts are.

Theater works right now is about 50% contributed revenue annually, 40% ticket sales annually, and about 10%.

Um, we're working with the bequest this year, um, that is sort of covering that last bit of the gap.

Our strategic planning process is to move that 10% to zero over the next two years.

And you mentioned our gala, and I think another way that we see um the traction that we have is the gala that we did in May was one of the third high highest grossing gallas in theater works history.

Yes, it is, was our third highest gala ever.

But again, something is mostly coming from individuals, whether it's coming in through galas, campaign work, individuals who are rallying around our organization, which is also a shift we're seeing nationally in nonprofit performing arts organizations.

As corporate and foundation support decreases, individuals are stepping up.

And I guess I would just love to celebrate that that our local communities are stepping up for us and investing in theater works, and I'm tremendously proud of that.

Um, having grown up here in the Bay Area and performed with many performing arts organizations over the years, a lot of those organizations unfortunately don't exist anymore.

And so, you know, I think we've seen a lot of success, um, particularly over the last few years during times when other organizations have not been so fortunate.

Um, and so you know, I think we are running on that runway now and continuing to build on that.

Another person we didn't celebrate earlier, but probably should have, is we do have a wonderful new development director, Aaron, who started, I don't know, four, four, four years, three, four years ago.

Aaron and I started right at the same time.

So, so right at um Welcome to Theater Works raised 3.5 million, or you close your doors.

So that's how when Aaron started.

Yes.

Yes.

And so I think that's yet another area that like we have seen tremendous progress and growth in.

Um, and I think a lot of that is thanks to the generosity and investment of our community and their belief in us and their desire for us to continue to be here.

I want to throw in that I actually was working at theater works in 2008 when the recession hit.

And the reason I bring that up is because at that moment we lost American Musical Theater of San Jose.

We lost San Jose rep, we lost the ballet, and Shakespeare Santa Cruz went bankrupt.

The only two organ, large large performing arts organizations that navigated that were theater works and the ballet.

And it wasn't that we were pulled under, weren't pulled underwater as well.

We just weren't quite as deep underwater when we started.

So we were able to kick back to the surface.

But those are a series of organizations with very diverse missions.

I mean, American Musical Theater of San Jose did the most popular musicals of all time, and at one point had I believe the largest subscriber base in the country, and they went bankrupt because those big shows are expensive to produce also.

So we're taking the learned lessons of what happened in the past, trying to understand how the world has changed and how we fit into it, and find that balance between economic stability and serving our mission and serving our community.

And I think that's where we are.

I have a question about uh your numbers of last year versus your anticipated for this year.

So I see your um contributed revenue is like projected to be less part of that.

I'm guessing is the NEA.

No, actually uh the way the numbers are accounted for uh this is an accounting thing.

There were some big requests last year.

There are two things.

There's some big bequests last year that skew the development numbers, and we got a number of multi-year pledges, and by accounting rules, we have to book three years or four years' worth of pledge in the year in which it's received.

The way we're planning to use those pledges, however, is they're payable over four years.

We will um spend them over four years and budget for them on a management point of view so that the revenue is recorded the year the cash is received and spent at the year's catch received.

So there's some screwiness around the numbers last year because there were A some a seven-figure bequest, and B, some multi-year pledges that had to be recorded in full, but we'll actually be using them as the revenue comes in over four years.

Okay, so then that answers my question of why is there such a huge surplus last year and um less this year.

And is um that a standard amount of surplus for you guys?

$1,000 in a year.

We budget um, well, depends on the year.

Okay.

Um, for about eight years up until the pandemic, uh, we would run an operational surplus surplus of between, I don't know, we would budget like a right around a break even tended to operate between 20 and 70,000 surplus, which is really just which was I loved because it meant the money was actually going back into the programming and not just sitting in the bank.

Um it was responsible and it worked.

Uh, we have the model blew up, honestly in COVID, covered for a while by SVOG.

Um that funding dried up.

We got some bequests, and we are rebuilding a new model with a goal back to that operational balance.

And we've gone from a significant gap to about a million dollars this year.

Next year, we're planning, we have a plan to hopefully get it down to about 600,000 in one-time funding and then be off it in two years.

That is our our projection right now.

Other questions?

Any questions?

Um, so your fiscal year ends in sometime in the summer.

When will your next 990 be posted?

990 will be posted um audit will be done in January this year.

Uh, we would normally aim for December, but again, some turnover and staff are gonna have it in January.

The 990 will be done 6.30 to 60 days after that, as soon as the auditors get it done.

But the board will, the audit will actually be drafted in December, approved by the board in January, and then that will be the basis of filling out the 994.

Okay.

I have one more question.

Um, I was wondering if you had observed any kind of pattern of um highs and lows in your audience space, like based on either programming or time of the year, anything like that.

Um, well, our highest grossing show tends to be Hershey Felder, who is a bit of a beast to himself.

Sure.

Theater work's highest grossing show like five, six years ago on single tickets was Emma the Musical, which we had done in 2007.

We revived it in like 2014, 2015, and it became the highest grossing show again at 324,000 in single tickets.

Five days later, five weeks later, Hershey Felder walked in the door and did 550,000 in single tickets and has been in a class of his own since.

Our second highest grossing show of the year is always the holiday show, which we do at the Lucy Stern.

And the reason we do it at Lucy Stern, I can say in one word, which is nutcrackers.

So, you know, like in Palo Alto, you don't mess with soccer fields in Mountain View, you don't mess with the nutcrackers.

I I know that.

I know that.

And I know the competition cracker people for their weeks is intense.

Um, so those are the two uh big sellers.

Those are standard things we've seen.

Um a show that we pumped what's Picka's title, Little Women.

If I did Little Women when we did it, um it did what it did in the holidays, it would do 25% more on the same run.

It's just a time when people are looking to go out, do things with families.

One of the things I love about the holiday show is you can actually look at the ticket purchasing patterns and see three generations through the pricing coming to the theater together.

It's just wonderful.

Um beyond that, shows are we're pretty good at figuring out what's good what bucket things are gonna land in.

Uh a big musical will tend to bring in more than a small new play, but it's but there isn't a percentage of our audience for whom the small new play is the reason they're coming at all.

They'll go to the big musicals because they're on the table, but they're here for the small new play.

One of the things I love about subscribers is they just take a bite and go on a journey and say, I don't know what I'm gonna see, show me stuff.

I had a lady once in Chicago say to me, I said, Would you like to renew your subscription?

I was in the lobby.

She said, sure, it wasn't so bad this year.

And while she's in her purse, she's it's February in Chicago.

She's pulling out like in her carpet bag looking for a checkbook, pulling out things like Mary Poppins.

She looks at me and goes, you know, I'm only gonna like three of the five, but if you ask me which three, I'd be wrong, so I'll come see them all.

And I went, yes, that's what a subscriber does.

And that's why to me the decline in the subscriber base in the habit of subscribing is a little more challenging for us as a field because it gave us the chance to take more risk, and it gave the audience a chance to discover something they didn't know they were gonna like.

And that habit broke during the pandemic, and we as a field are trying to figure out if we can get it back in any way, whatever the format is, because both the artistic risk we got to take and the chance for people to come out and see stuff they didn't know they were gonna like was really a glorious thing about the regional theater, and it's been a little harder to get back.

We're becoming much more single ticket focused, which puts pressure on doing titles that have more sales appeal.

That's where we are.

Well, I guess I have a note here about the meta campaigns.

Is there anybody here that can answer that question?

Sure.

Um, so I mean, like, did you do that closer into the print to the performances or so for our single ticket campaigns?

The um the uh the shows um usually have a meta campaign starting about like two and a half weeks before we start, so leading up until our opening, and then through our run.

So we usually probably have about like a six, seven-week part of Metax and our show.

Per production.

Do you know the demographics of people who go out through Meta?

Um I might be able to find that.

I don't have that right now, but I could definitely see if it's in the dashboard that's provided by our our um just cage all night.

So yeah, let me write that to see if I can.

7:30.

I know you have a show.

I've missed it.

So now I will do interpretive.

What time is this thing in?

I've got a lot of it.

Which is fine.

This is so important to me, and truly there is uh the work you're doing, the work we're doing in conjunction with you is more important.

So I'm happy to hear that.

Um any other questions from the committee at this time.

Oh, well, I have to say thank you for your presentation.

Um I hear promising things.

I'm very excited to hear, you know, the time.

You know, as a committee, we are stewards of the interest of the Mountain View public, and you guys are part of that that network of arts and cultures in the city, and so it's lovely to see how you guys are moving forward, especially after some tumultuous time because it's exciting.

I like some of the changes that are happening.

Um so I look forward to seeing it in a year's time, whether wherever that may be so exciting.

So you guys have any enough otherwise.

Thank you.

Oh, the comments are just committee questions.

Oh.

Sure.

Sorry.

We do questions and comments, right?

Well, there's no action on this.

Okay.

I did already do questions.

I wanted to have comments.

Okay, go ahead.

No, that's okay.

Um, yeah.

Just on my comments, uh, I would just echoing everything that you said, um, this is you know, really, but I I would really urge the the group to really think about the actors, which one of my uh co-members, not sure, co-members brought up.

Um, it because I I know that they are professional actors.

They are expecting to work six days a week, but if they are not filling houses, you know, maybe instead of a Tuesday and Wednesday night show, you do a Tuesday or Wednesday night show or something.

Um will help save your actors' voices, will help extend their you know, health and everything through the career through the through the run of the show.

I mean, and it it is very having performed in front of a dozen people, six people on stage.

It's very sad, right, as a performer.

And so um also keeping in mind for the morale, but I I am um really um really excited to see what you're gonna do.

And I and I I think also um I would ask theater works to consider, you know, if I the two sides of the one coin of wanting to do lots of unique and unusual content to that is gonna serve varied amount of different types of audience types and which will represent overall Mountain View community well, but if people are not coming to see it, like maybe throw in a popular show here or there, or something like another revival of Emma or something of that sort.

Um, I mean you're obviously in charge of your own programming, but I think it also serves the community if they get excited about art in our town.

And so think about that as well.

That's where your people are gonna go, or Mountain View residents are gonna go.

You know what?

I heard there's something really great going on.

I I remember I know that show, or I've heard of that show before, or it sounds kind of familiar.

I or I know another show from that group.

Um to bring them out, and I think that would really serve our community.

So to bring people in.

Okay, since we're on actors, I'd like to compliment the casting, whoever did that in King James.

It was um, you know, probably a more nuanced performance than some of the other productions, and I I really enjoyed the smart dialogue and everything about that.

You'll be happy to know they they both won best actor.

They got for the first time they gave them a tie for their work.

Who did?

Um the sorry, the same organization, the San Francisco, the sorry, the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle.

A lot of words in there.

Yeah, so they totally agree.

We'll be back later.

Oh, actually, you're gonna get to see them both on our stages.

We love them.

Oh great.

Lovely.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And it's definitely.

So glad to hear that.

Thank you.

Very much.

Thank you.

Bye all.

Bye.

Have a great time.

So I'll sit in other committees where they want us to see this all of the fucking stuff.

It's not really all the other committee.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

I don't know where I'm going.

So we'll meet with that.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

So we have the we have 6.2 quarterly impact report.

Somewhere in here, the very back, you should have.

There it is, the little purple sheet.

Oh, it's our quarterly impact report for July, August, September of 25.

So, and and I just want to also reiterate usually July and August is typically um light for us.

Um, and then we kick back up in September.

Um, so and we've reorganized these for you so that it's main stage and second stage, so a little easier to read.

Okay.

So obviously we have Peninsula Youth Theater, Allison Wonderland Jr.

on the main stage for six performances, lamp lighters music theater, um, HMS Pinafore and Smeon Contemporary Dance doing extremely close, and then I'm looking at this.

I'm gonna wanna subtotal here.

And then um up on the second stage upstage theater, another resident company as well with Peninsula Youth Theater and Peninsula Youth Theater Chicago Teen Edition, Pocket Opera, and Hileyablenov.

Um and City of Mountain View uh Tech Showcase.

So I do wanna in transparency say that um the tech showcase is free, so those are not really tickets sold.

Um but you know, we we're trying to work with them a little bit because as you can see, we gave away 217 tickets and then 68 people showed up.

So we're actually gonna um work on doing the tickets kind of in a different way that they're good until so the show starts at seven, and your tickets are only good till 645, okay.

So they get scared you know, if you got a ticket, you get scanned, but then we can start letting people in because we had a line of folks that showed up and didn't have tickets, but we couldn't really let them in because we'd oversold it, you know.

We so we're we figured that out.

Who who's hosting it?

That's the chamber.

The chamber's hosting it, got it.

Okay, got it, sorry.

I don't know if I miss that.

Yeah, that's a partnership with us in the chamber.

Got it.

Yeah, so when you say oversold it, when you said there was it's free, it's free, but we we ticket everything, right?

So regardless of whether it's free or not, we'd still ticket it.

Um, because people you know want to get tickets in advance, but the problem the tricky wicket, of course, is when it's free, yeah.

Then the night of it's like, yeah, I'd rather go have a bird.

You know, like it's you know, there's no skin in the game, so then they don't come.

Um, but there's a way to handle that in that you know you just make sure that the ticket says that your ticket is valid until a certain time, so it has to be scanned, you know, and they usually have a reception ahead of time.

So if you're really coming, it starts at seven, the reception's at 6 30.

So you'll be there.

You get your tickets scanned, then we know how many people are like there, and then when you show up, it's like we just let you in until we fill you up, fill it up, and then if somebody shows up at 7 10 and is like, oh well, I want in.

Well, too bad you're ticking with them.

Right, let me see.

Are they paying the nonprofit rate?

It's a partnership between the city.

Oh, through the city, yeah.

So do the department, or specifically the center.

Um, no, the department.

Okay, okay, got it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Interesting.

You know, I saw the Torco.

So lamp lighters.

I saw that for the first time.

Um, that company.

And I'm kind of surprised to see that it was 59%.

I mean, is that normal for them?

What is lamp lighters.

Yeah.

What do you mean?

59.

59%.

Do they normally sell more or um?

Um, no, that's I mean, that's kind of it just depends on the show.

I mean, they're not as what I'll say is they're not they're not a they're not a sellout, but they do well.

Also, whatever timing, they do well.

This is the summer quarter, so exactly.

Yeah, so all my birthday's in the summer.

So, where was the show?

That's what I did.

And for you, it's not fully.

Okay.

Questions, comments, thoughts?

On the quarters, in fact, report.

I'm just curious, is there some kind of like statistic or whatever that shows like what the overall percentage of tickets show sold for every single person is?

See, again.

Every single company, every single company.

Yeah, like overall, what are people?

For the last 30 years.

No, no, no.

No, I mean, what are you asking?

Yeah, no, I'm just I'm just wondering because I'm seeing a lot of 50%, and I'm just wondering what the overall average is, but I don't know if that's for it does feel low, but it's a small set of like again.

The the this quarter's usually typically light, right?

This is the lightest quarter.

Oh, yeah, it's the lightest, it's the lightest quarter.

And then um, and then I will also say even with um Smoon, who does really well with their holiday show.

Yeah, this is their dance series one.

Um, they've now started naming them, so it's extremely close.

Um, and they came in at 60%, which, you know, for their other two shows, it's not the cookie game.

They come in very high for the holiday production, but these other shows, not necessarily.

Was it specific also data that you were interested in though as well or some subset?

No, I just realized that this is the June July months uh I was just like everybody's so low.

Why is why I said so long?

So I was just wondering, is it just low in general in the world of performing arts or but it sounds like remembering now the other ones are not like that?

Well, even even PYT, I mean kind of can speak to that like on the main stage shows, you know.

Yeah, that's typical.

They're typically higher than the 51% summer.

Yeah, but that's for us, a little different.

Like for us, our summer show is our K 8 show.

It's younger kids.

Uh-huh.

So we hit a smaller portion of our audience overall because it's a really kid show.

We're not getting as you know, like small very poppets only two years ago.

Like that's gonna really bring in a diverse age of audience.

This is really only Stanley's report if it's a lot of company here.

And Chicago teen edition did really well, so yes, and it was also just a scratch show.

Yes, 65 for us and it for the for the summer musical.

Kind of on the opposite end.

The reason why we buy at the main stage show is K8, our teen edition is high school or something.

So again, we're kind of limiting our audience there, but we do that intentionally.

So we give the younger kids more opportunity to have bigger roles and the older kids get to have a show without that girls running or um I mean I invite the committee too.

I mean, if there are metrics that we aren't looking at, because it's something that when I was first on the committee, I was trying to wrap my head about what what else would be nice to see.

I mean, maybe not in the recorder, but things like that.

I mean, we're looking at specific, you know, these are the numbers as well, but there's other data that maybe the center should be looking at for community impact.

I mean, that's within our purview too, just as well to some degree.

So I mean, I feel like the number I've been focusing on a lot has been like percentage of tickets sold.

Um, because I think that's for me just cerebrally easy to kind of understand.

I'm wondering if we could have like a year to date um for like maybe our resident companies, like um consistently how they're selling.

Yeah, like so it's just like here we are in September, and at this point, their average percentage sold is whatever, or maybe we're already doing that.

Well, we kind of early report.

Yeah, I think I think we just need to separate.

I mean, theaterworks is already separated out because they're a different software.

Um so um we just have to separate out PYT and upstage.

I I think also the ask is just kind of seeing over time, right?

How what percent it are they at, you know, this quarter were they at 40 per or 48%?

This quarter were they at looking over the I think the entire year, perhaps is the thought there.

That is an interesting thing, but well, that goes to the thing in with city council approved was they're less than 55% that triggers another uh report.

So if we don't have a cumulative um yeah, then how do we know that they need to come back?

Yeah, that's an interesting thing instead of looking at it every quarter with the percentages having to the cumulative number every quarter as well.

Maybe for resident companies would be interesting, especially moving.

Well, no, it's a it's I mean Carol's right, it's appropriate given the uh changing asset.

But we don't currently have it, right?

So that's what well it wasn't necessary.

No, I'm just saying thinking, yeah, no, no, that's double checking either.

We don't have it, yeah.

We don't have it, but yeah.

Exactly.

Okay, great.

Perfect.

I just barely out of the first time.

I know, I know, I know.

Plan ahead of planet.

It would be interesting for me.

This is Q1s that wouldn't, yeah, there wouldn't be any cumulative.

But what'd be interesting to me since we were talking about this earlier is um the tenants and revenue, but um so this maybe isn't appropriate here.

So maybe it's not, but like might also be interested in like how many days were the performances over.

Like, did this um Alice in Wonderland?

Was it like that over two weeks?

So not just the performances, but like the the rental days, right?

So like days 14 performances six, I'm just making something like that.

How long are you sitting?

Right?

How long they're taking the the space.

Yeah, um, yeah, would be kind of interesting.

Because it's like I look at a lot of these things and I go, HMS Penophore, that's a big show, and to do two performances.

Right.

I mean, I know I've I've I performed an HMS performance.

It's got boats and big costumes.

Yes, it does.

Yeah, but it is amazingly fun, but I know the lamp lighter specifically moves the performance to multiple theaters.

So I would just be curious to like load all in one day or do they best as a number that the the data or best as a percentage or as a day sat specifically?

I think it's just day sat instead of usage, okay.

It would be interesting if we had that just to kind of see you know how the things are being used.

I'm because I could imagine that technology showcase probably didn't require a lot of advanced things.

Yeah, one-on-one.

So um, but also we don't know with no income for that.

Yes.

So then you want performance dates of the run, not their load in and all those other ends.

No, the loaded as well.

No, yeah.

So my question is so you want the days that they're there, usage days.

Do you want the usage days so sort of take a conversation?

You know, they're there for 14 days, two weeks, and then they do six performances, or do you want um eight days?

Knowing that there's six performances.

Well, they could they could have two on one day, so never mind.

I just answered my own question.

Yeah, that would be to walk myself through it, I guess.

Well if you just explain what you've done, I think you're gonna have to follow we were in for an eight days total uh for both there.

It's it was eight days total in the building, four tech, four word performances.

So we did have two days Saturday and Sunday that had two performances.

So that's what's so do we file a motion to include this information?

Oh no, it's your report.

Okay, you just tell us we fix it.

Um this is information for you because and what may also be interesting is um and I I'm sure you I imagine you have this master calendar with province and stuff going between of like um do we have any idle weeks or anything in the theater where like they're gonna say that's that's why I'm kind of interested in the day sat.

We're never gonna get the band rooms updated.

So I go.

So so what I what I will, yeah, I will be really frank on that one.

The days that we have empty, the little pockets of time, I literally blocked it off for maintenance.

Okay, once we once we puzzle primary and we get everybody in, then I have to block off days, otherwise our building will not get speed problems.

That's a that's what I kind of figured.

I figured it's not even though this is 23 performances over three months, I figured there's not a lot of just days where we want to so what I will say is this summer there was some days open because we were supposed to be doing construction in second stage, and that yeah, in city didn't happen the way that it needed to, so it got pushed to this.

It were days, but I had locked them off because I permit construction and because we were not we thought we were gonna be doing that.

All right, and you know, in typical city, you know, things just take longer than they're supposed to.

No other questions about the report.

Comment.

Good job.

Okay, great.

Um, so looking at just dates um for that uh committee staff announcement item seven, committee staff announcements, updates, requests, committee report, used it, post impact.

Um I have thoughts after some of looking for forward and red as from the presentation today.

You know, we have a lot of back end data again.

That look even looking at the quarterly impact report.

I have some you know, question that we're not looking at the right things maybe for we're looking at the good good and right things.

I wonder if there's something else that we could be looking at in order to not more questions, but just on our end to to be I still struggle with being able to be accountable to the community in in our whether it's question asking or data that we're we're looking at to really be you know stewards of public interest here, you know.

So, but the jet does theater is changing, right?

Even the question from subscribers to to one op ticket sales is an interesting change to be brought up and how that impacts just overall the health of the theater.

I mean, that's just theater works, but um, no other companies are right, are doing it as well who are running.

So I just I that there's some questions about the and it doesn't directly pertain to us, but whether that's social media partnerships or certain things that we could be doing um with the our whether it's uh whether it's memos or or not memos, um, things like that with uh with the resident companies or something, I feel like there's a missing component that can still be asked, but this is just the beginning of that question that I have and an improvement or something.

So just a thought right there.

You raise a good point.

I think that's they put down a lot of really great um activities and things here, but what I see is a lot of words and that many numbers.

So they visited all these local schools and everything.

Well, how many times?

Um, I said don't ask, but I just didn't know the I was just trying to find what page they were on and they were talking fast, which is understandable because you know, time is limited, but historically, I find myself always asking for data from some of the companies.

So it's great that they went to Stevenson's school.

Um how many times?

How many kids do you serve?

What classes uh are do you ever do they want you back?

I think too there's this question of for all you know the are the different companies in the center, you know, are these efforts translating into ticket sales or revenue, whatever behab or you know, are these impacts translating?

And I think in this, you know, era of experimentation with theater, that's my concern of you know, how can we look at health when things are changing and we're not sure of what the impact is going to be.

So that's you know, it is coming back to some of these questions in a year time to see where different companies are, but I have some concern that you know uh how much do we let theater dig into itself in years time if we're uncertain with the outcomes that will occur.

That makes sense.

So uh just looking at their involvement with the Mountain View community.

I mean, they aren't necessarily going to those schools, they just said that we offer um ticket vouchers to these schools okay yes yeah, so like I like I saw Mountain View Education Foundation and I I work with them regularly, and then I suddenly remembered like, oh, right, they give some of their tickets for their gala um option items.

And so that's what it says similarly here for Gabriela Mistral my son went there for their PTA so it's probably again another option item so they're not actually going into these stuff.

This is the school calling maybe saying hey we're having an auction yes I can use support yeah exactly but they're putting it under outreach so but they're offering free tickets to Mountain View schools and um community members right so it is giving to the community the the tie in would be you know the more presence that there is in the community with these organizations you know the theoretical partnership that that that individual will have with the center because theater works at the center but maybe that's too much and that would be that would be how it would connect to then us as a committee because we'd be saying okay we like this outreach because it's spreading the word about a resident company for the center but in and of itself is it direct does it directly pertain to the center?

No.

Does it would that directly pertain to the committee no and so that that's again like that that tricky point of their outreach is I guess getting that narrative from them of and I mean that's always a tricky thing to pull narrative from someone but to see how does that impact translate into to the center such a deeper longer discussion than than their annual presentation.

That's something to consider if we need a specific report from our resident companies on that we need a specific I don't know that that's something that we're currently not doing to see and I in the moment of experimentation how do we how do we stay accountable as the the pulse is changing.

So how are we measuring like if uh if an uh company is going into these schools or going to those places how that's impacting the center I mean like I know as a city it's um that term might be you spend a lot of money yes ancillary so yeah so and I understand that by them giving the tickets they're and increasing auxiliary spending but is there something specifically because you mentioned how is it helping the center so is there a point of measurement for this.

Right and I think there's also a balance between ancillary spending ancillary spending has its place and it and its place to be leveraged and we do leverage that and so it's great for them to say it but does that is that our primary concern as as a committee as well great to hear the ancillary spending but how how much um where does that sit in the network of impact I think the ancillary spending for me is because when we're trying to do cost recovery and I've got someone pushing that you know hypothetically that we should be 90% or 100% cost recovery.

And I would argue that that we shouldn't be because of all the groups that come and use the facility the ancillary spending in the city and especially our downtown you know is so you know the argument can always be made that if your ancillary spending is high enough that's like 30% that is unseen revenue it's not direct revenue to us but it still supports the city in general so that you don't want to raise your fees so high that you're now like precluding people from being able to use facility.

So if you're 100% cost recovery well now we're we might as well be you know out of the market right and they're only gonna get those yeah bigger shows that can somehow fit on the stage.

Yeah and that's just not what we would go for.

And the balance between regional theater and a community stage maintains itself kind of a terrible balance in the future of the center.

So one of the yes so I think that their second stage productions here and their outreach to local schools is a major step from them not doing anything last year.

They're great stripes.

There are that are that are sounds like a lot of change is happening and for the back.

Development director, new artistic director, everything's marketing director.

Parking director, yeah.

So with the develop them director's been here with them for about three years at least.

Yeah, Giovanni's been with them that long also, but she wasn't the artistic director before she was in charge of the new works.

I see.

Okay.

Yeah.

And when did they do the Save the Theater campaign?

Was that three years ago?

That was my first when I first got here.

So 23.22.

Okay, maybe three years ago.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

So, because I started in August.

Yeah, I want to say it was beginning of 20.

I started in August of 2020.

Right around this.

That's to be within my two-year term.

It was so.

I wonder how, so how does the endowment is that is that that's considered an endowment, or what did they do with the money?

They have a thousand dollars.

Yeah, that was this fundraising.

The save the theater was a um separate fundraising campaign.

That was separate.

That's what they said they didn't use any of their regular budget planning.

It was a separate people to give money to do this move and like when we're building.

No, that's different from the Save the Theater campaign.

We save the theater campaign was very much a very specific um basically all the theaters that were trying to stay afloat.

Um I thought, oh, okay.

I was I remember the specific outreach that theater works did specifically when they were to go bankrupt, I guess at the move is what I was thinking of.

No, I think the move happened much afterwards.

Yeah, the move was I think it was the theater one year move.

We are here today.

Yeah.

So well, yeah, and then post-in a lot for the um, yeah.

I saw I might only think it's kind of thinking about you guys now as we're moving forward.

What does what is theater and arts and culture look like at the center for the city of Mountain View and four?

Not be public.

That's up to us.

Well, we to listen to the public, and what I'm hearing from the public is they want more variety.

Yes.

Oh, we're both sent to that.

So the public, you're right.

So can you talk about what happens in the next meeting and through like a free and then?

Or uh like for November?

Yeah, we don't meet in December.

Right.

Correct, until we have one more meeting.

So November you have upstage coming to do their presentation.

Oh, that's right.

Okay, thank you again.

So that's on the agenda.

And then 35th stuff happening.

So did we do we have National Arts and Humanities Month this year?

Maybe passed.

It was this month, wasn't it?

Oh gosh, it was just the one.

Happy art.

Humanities month, everybody.

That's our thing.

Somebody else is gonna steal it.

No, no one else will steal it.

Uh 35th anniversary is coming in.

Is it the bicentennial of the city?

No, the centennial of the city next next year too.

I don't know.

But that's something that uh nobody said anything about that.

No, I would look the the It's some animals.

Coming up.

No, I don't know.

The big so that's I just want to double check if that it'll say somewhere, but I think that's so if you want to we because if we're gonna do something with the 35th, we may have an ad hoc, so we can add that to the agenda for now.

Okay.

What did you say?

I'm just curious about an ad hoc for the 30th anniversary for the center.

Well, so but not this agenda.

So tell us uh what you envisioned in ad hoc new way.

Um well, we had talked about um doing something for the 35th, and what what I was thinking um was because we're gonna have an open house, and then you know, we've got you know, variety of groups that we'll have on the the main stage, and then we have the second stage, and then I'm looking to program the park stage also and have you know kind of a big half-day open house kind of thing.

Um, but I was thinking it would be fun and also a way for us to kind of promote hopefully, that at that point the um second stage vitality program that we would have um stop that that we could have we could have auditions and we could have you know we could have folks come and say, I'm I'm I want to do XYZ because it's kind of more of an open an open call versus um and and then the committee could like say okay, we're gonna we've got slots for uh however many folks.

Um we're doing like 30 minutes on the main stage, so we could do shorter ones on the second stage, Penny.

We could have poets and guitar players and whatever.

Um when is this scheduled for?

So we don't have a date scheduled because I'm working on headlining talent right now.

So it'll kind of hire.

Oh, your headlining, yeah.

So um, but I went to, I mean, just as an example, I went to Monday night, I went to Red Rock and they have their open mic night.

Yep, yeah.

It was full.

Yes, in fact, it was wonderful.

So I'm just like, why don't we just, yeah, not so formal, not so programmed, but I would like to.

I mean, I think we just need to have like some kind of like an audition or something so that we know who wants to do this and who we can sign up and do that.

The Red Rock open mic just has a long history, and so it'd make it that's why it's full.

It's just so I I don't know if moving spaces will translate.

No, I'm not thinking, I know, but I'm just saying the the idea of something new popping up, we just have to be careful, I think, and make sure we're intentional.

But as a performer, I would say I think people would love to um do something on a stage because at the end of the day it's the video that matters.

So if they get a video of themselves like on the main stage or the second stage, they can put it on their social media and people don't know that this was an open night free gig, it looks like they were they were presented at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, you know.

So I think that's a big big draw for um upcoming performers.

Well perhaps the city's communications department could take some of that stuff.

Oh yeah.

I I think that having an item.

Maybe there for the 35th, that's not a problem.

Considering this, you know, thinking about ad hoc and we can even come up.

Can we have the committee come up with objectives as well?

Non-binding, we could think about that in a conversation moving forward with if we do end up creating an ad hoc committee and have this discussion again in the upcoming agenda item.

Okay, let's do that.

And I think there should be blink blink, bling, bling.

Lots of bling.

Let's do some drag performances.

So okay, so we'll add that to the agenda for November.

Okay.

Um may I ask last time, um, Carol, you mentioned the Silicon Valley Creates meeting.

Did you end up with how did it go?

Did you go?

I didn't go.

They didn't invite me because I'm not a new member.

They said they were gonna.

Well, did you invite him for the eighth?

I was a little busy this month.

For the eighth, I don't, I don't think I was a uh commissioner's boot camp.

So we we don't get the we didn't get that.

I didn't get that in between.

Well, it sounds like it was lovely, and I'm sure everyone who attended loved it.

So for so yeah, we're not I'm I I occasionally get invited when they have an extra spot, so to speak, because it's for the visual arts, it's not for the performing arts.

Right.

So I'm not well, you know what?

I didn't really feel like driving to San Jose that night, so I didn't get invited in that thought.

Well, something for Silicon Valley, right?

It's a San Jose based operation.

They had a meeting here at the uh city hall uh upstairs.

We hosted we have yeah, our visual arts.

So they said that they were going to.

So they do quarterly meetings throughout Silicon Valley with various speakers, and it is mostly visual arts, and they passed around a sheet for anybody who would be interested in planning their boot camp.

So I went to one or two in-person meetings and maybe one um Zoom meeting.

And I was there to say, well, be sure to talk about bombing arts.

It's an art.

Yeah, there's kind of a struggle with an ecosystem lens with it.

I know, I know.

So uh you know, I don't really know how that you know turned out.

I've been to a couple of their luncheon meetings, and I find it interesting, and I always love going places and meeting new people, but it's not that much about the performing arts, and I don't see why it can educate me.

Can I pick a quick call?

We uh PAT gets a pretty much regular annual grant from so let's big card value creates, and I think the way we're involved with them may be a grantee for group, you know, things they offer to to people who didn't get money, but we've been pretty consistently supported by them for a long time.

Um then why don't they ever get a panelist that will talk about performing?

I don't know.

I've gone to their grantee town hall over here, and I do think they they do have a lot of support.

Well, that's good to hear.

I know they're a grand organization.

I'm not sure, and it doesn't seem like that might be the same way that you all know interact with them.

There's a city component like with the municipal governments and partnerships that they that Silicon Valley has uh creates has created, um, and so that is one aspect, and that's probably what the commissioner thing was, and then they have their their nonprofit network because they are trying to one of their big things was we do not have any large size nonprofits in our greatest mid-size of the children's discovery museum in San Jose, and so it's building the nonprofit network, um, partly to look at like the indicator of health in the nonprofit sector for the arts, um, which is an interesting metric, or what it's worth.

But no, so the boot camp happened.

Okay, any other questions?

Okay, well, you could you guys couldn't go.

I was out of town, yeah.

That's why I was asking if I thought somehow you were going, but so I guess.

Well, I I invited both of you.

Yeah, and then she she had her rehearsal for her, and so I thought, well, maybe I'll go and I get the impression.

Well, maybe not.

So well, the next performing arts committee meeting will be held on Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 at 6 15 p.m.

in the Adrian Conference Room, 500 Castro Street.

This meeting is adjourned at 8:08.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye, honor.