We were doing pretty good in the beginning. Got our 501C3 and started raising funds to buy the theater. It has been sitting empty for 15 years and going downhill every day. We put together a melodrama for our first production. It went really well. Then we did a Halloween comedy which was great fun (I acted in that one), then I directed Hansel & Gretel with the children. It was really something. I enjoyed working with the kids, and it was the first time most of them had ever done anything like that. But the audience began to complain of the mold and musty air in the old building and the owner started finding ways to charge us more rent. So we tried another production, a comedy, and took it to all the little town community centers. Nobody showed up. So, for about a year now we have been in limbo. The owner of the theater died and the family sold the theater to the county. I just had too much on my plate to keep things together without any help. The few who were helping in the beginning, disappeared. The theater is still sitting empty and unless the county puts out the money or gets some grants, it will sit until it falls down. My dream gone in disillusionment. Sad.
There’s a little theatre where I live in NJ that my husband and I tried to turn into an Equity theatre. We did one lovely professional production but then board members and actors began to get jealous of our work and started bitching and moaning about all the work needed to make a living, breathing, successful theatre.
And, then the owner! Same problems as you. That’s pretty much why I stay in NY, although my husband has applied for an Artistic Directorship of a theatre in Maine. I’m not even sure we’ll take it if, by luck, he got it.