Curtain closes for Parallel 45 Theatre

Dec. 28—TRAVERSE CITY — Post-pandemic financial woes claimed another victim in Traverse City's arts world, with Parallel 45 Theatre announcing its dissolution.

When the nonprofit professional theater company announced in February that it was canceling what should have been a summer of programming, complete with three productions and youth camps and classes, the hope was the pause would be temporary.

But attempts to find a sustainable way forward fell short despite the board and volunteers "working tirelessly" to recover, said board President Erin Anderson Whiting.

"We were not able to get ourselves into a stable enough financial position to continue the company," she said.

In a joint letter from Anderson Whiting and cofounder Kit McKay, they pointed to a "decimated" national arts ecosystem, where professional theater companies have 33 percent fewer people in the seats and 35 percent smaller income levels compared to 2019.

While the situation is slowly improving, the damage for some arts nonprofits was simply too great, as proved the case for Parallel 45 Theatre.

That means the company's winter play-reading series at the Alluvion was its last act.

Parallel 45 Theatre started its summer lineup of plays at the Civic Center's outdoor stage, kicking off with "Hair" in 2019 after its previous venue closed in 2016.

For 13 years, the nonprofit prided itself on its role in the city's cultural scene as a "boundary-pushing" theater company that drew in actors from far away to perform in new interpretations of familiar plays and musicals, according to the nonprofit.

"Parallel 45 was 15 years of my life," Anderson Whiting said. "P45 was a dream I had with a very good friend, and then it became a collective dream of hundreds and then thousands of people, when you count the audience members. I will miss that sense of community very much."

The board considered many options before making the tough call, but the cost of running a professional arts organization isn't small, Anderson Whiting said.

Its $800,000-per-year budget was fairly lean, and while ticket sales were a part of its income, the best a professional theater company can hope for is to earn 41 percent through tickets.

That meant the nonprofit was heavily dependent on philanthropy, and both she and McKay implored people to support other arts nonprofits in the region in their co-written farewell letter.

"Yes, we need them in our communities, and the only way they survive is with philanthropy," Anderson Whiting said. "We're encouraging people to think about that when they think about the organizations that they love and want to happen in our community."

For Mary Bevans Gillett, convener and director of Northwest Michigan Arts & Culture Network, the news of Parallel 45 Theatre's closure was deeply saddening. But it wasn't a great shock considering the nonprofit's canceled summer season, and the struggles arts nonprofits are facing around the nation.

She applauded the organization's resiliency and efforts to adapt to the pandemic, its partnerships with other nonprofits and educational efforts as well.

"The reason this makes it just especially hard to watch is that group did this amazing job creating, nurturing, growing this theater and jumping in and really trying to respond in the trenches as well as they could," Gillett said. "And they did everything right, and still these forces were so strong that they just made this decision."

Parallel 45 Theater's closure is another hole in the creative fabric of the region in the same year that Arts for All of Northern Michigan announced it would fold, Gillett said.

It's important for people who enjoy these arts organizations not to take them for granted and support them, whether in big ways or small.

"Nobody can do it all, but everybody can do something, that's what I'd love to see," she said.