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Werth, Staff Out at Shubert
City seeks private operator for troubled theater
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Business New Haven
4/30/2001
By: BNH
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Following a city administration decision to turn management of the Shubert Performing Arts Center over to a private operator, longtime Shubert head Caroline Werth stepped down April 17 after eight-plus years on the job. She will remain a consultant to the theater through the close of the current season.
Werth was named executive director of the theater in December 1992, later garnering the title of president and CEO.
All remaining employees - about 40 full- and part-time - of the financially strapped Shubert will lose their jobs by the end of the theater season in June.
Werth left her job "in light of the city's decision to privatize the theater rather than renew the current management's lease," according to a press release issued by the theater.
In March the theater's board of directors told the city, its landlord, that it could not renew its management agreement in November because it expected to be more than $1.5 million in debt for the year - the third time since the 1914 theater's reopening in 1983 that it would require a large bailout to keep its doors open.
The theater reopened under a management arrangement by which a non-profit board of directors leases the facility from the city. The Shubert required a $1.5 million bailout from the city in 1995, then a $1.3 million bailout from the state in 1996.
Since its reopening, the "Birthplace of the Nation's Greatest Hits" has struggled financially, most recently attempting to fend off competition from larger venues such as the 4,800-seat Oakdale theater in Wallingford.
City administrators have been seeking proposals from national-level theater management firms to take over the theater in time to schedule shows for the 2001-02 season.
After the Shubert board revealed to the city last month that it expected to lose some $1.5 million during the present season, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. formed a committee, headed by city Development Administrator Henry Fernandez, charged with determining a new management strategy for the theater to be in place by July, allowing shows to be booked for the 2001-02 season.
According to published reports, under consideration for managing the Shubert are the Columbus/Chicago Association for the Performing Arts, Dallas Summer Theater and the Iowa-based Compass Facility Management.
Of its future overseers, Werth said: "I hope that whoever might operate this theater in the future does so with the same strong sense of mission, passion, skills and energy to meet the many challenges it faces. And I hope that the city [of New Haven] gives them the support they need to remain a cultural, educational, social and economic resource for the people of New Haven."
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