The Bushnell had a banner year most theaters would envy.
In the 12-month period that ended June 30, 2025, Connecticut’s largest nonprofit theater posted a $3.1 million surplus on $36.9 million in revenue, reversing a $1.7 million deficit from a year earlier, with both ticket sales and donations rising.
Now, it’s taking on another theater’s losses.
As of July 1, The Bushnell assumed full financial responsibility for the Warner Theatre in Torrington, which has run persistent operating deficits and holds an endowment of just $360,000. The formal affiliation builds on a management relationship the two theaters have maintained since 2023.
The partnership is about more than rescuing one struggling theater. It reflects broader changes underway in Connecticut’s nonprofit theater industry, where audiences have largely returned after the pandemic but many organizations continue to operate on thin margins as rising costs, limited growth in earned revenue and shifting funding sources force them to rethink how they operate.
Some smaller theaters have even been forced to close their doors or cancel shows.
The Warner’s books reveal why it needed a larger partner. In fiscal year 2025, the Warner posted an operating loss of about $845,000, on top of a $520,000 loss the year before.
Now fully backed by The Bushnell, the Warner retains its name, staff and community mission. In return, The Bushnell gains a 300-seat black-box theater to develop productions for potential touring.
David Fay, The Bushnell’s president and CEO, said that capability matters because Broadway isn’t producing enough new shows to satisfy the growing number of presenting theaters competing to book them. Just six original musicals opened this Broadway season, he noted.
Creating original content, he said, is a hedge against that shrinking supply.
“When you get to a certain size — particularly if you have a facility that you’ve got to take care of — you’ll see more of this,” said Fay, who expects more consolidation across the industry. He describes the strategy as “funding aspiration instead of funding desperation.”
Two business models
How theaters respond to broader pressures impacting the sector depends in part on their business model.
Connecticut’s nonprofit theaters generally fall into two categories: presenting theaters, which rent finished productions and put them on stage, and producing theaters, which create their own shows from start to finish.
“We’re the largest producing company,” said Vanessa Logan, managing director of Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam.
Producing theaters like Goodspeed invest heavily in developing shows from the ground up, but a successful production can generate long-term returns. Since 1963, Goodspeed has launched 21 productions that eventually reached Broadway, including “Annie,” whose 50th anniversary it celebrates this winter. Royalties from that hit helped build the theater’s multimillion-dollar endowment.
Goodspeed designs and builds its own sets and costumes in East Haddam, houses performers and designers during productions, and has exported shows to New York, London and beyond. The theater employs nearly 400 people each season and estimates its annual economic impact at about $20 million, Logan said.
Presenting theaters follow a different model. The Bushnell and Shubert Theatre in New Haven book touring Broadway productions and concerts rather than producing their own shows.
Because they present a variety of productions throughout a season, a stronger booking can help offset one that underperforms, said Anthony McDonald, executive director of the Shubert Theatre.
“I don’t have to live or die on a single performance or a single run of something, because thankfully we get to, in many ways, curate the season,” he said.
Strong demand, tight margins
Despite different business models, theater leaders say they face the same economic reality: strong attendance doesn’t cover the cost of producing live performance.
Goodspeed illustrates that challenge. Logan said the producer filled about 93% of its seats last year, among its strongest seasons, even as its most recent tax filing showed a $1.3 million deficit. Donations accounted for about a third of its revenue, with another 15% to 18% of the budget filled through other sources, Logan said.
Across the nonprofit theater industry, earned revenue, including ticket sales, typically covers only 40% to 60% of operating expenses, meaning even well-attended theaters rely heavily on philanthropy, grants and other funding sources to balance their budgets. Goodspeed falls near the bottom of that range, even in a strong year.
The Bushnell saw gains in both earned revenue and philanthropy in fiscal 2025. Ticket and program revenue rose $3.4 million, while contributions increased about $4.1 million. Subscription renewals for the upcoming season are running six percentage points ahead of the previous two years, according to Stephanie Fried, The Bushnell’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.
The Shubert’s finances followed a different path. The theater swung from a $170,000 deficit to a $2.9 million surplus in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2025.
Contributions and government grants climbed from $1.7 million to $4.7 million, accounting for most of the improvement. McDonald attributed the increase largely to state funding for lighting, sound and cabaret-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 Waterbury 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 insurance 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 Goodspeed 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 informally, 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.”
