Shakespeare Festival's big void

For 24 years, Cindy Melby Phaneuf was a driving force behind the Nebraska Shakespeare Festival.

Now she's gone, and knowledgeable sources say the festival board is about to learn what an asset — and a bargain — she was.

“She's one of the better-known Shakespeare artistic directors in the country, deeply respected,” said Philip Sneed, president of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America and artistic director of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. “You're not going to find anybody near her caliber for the price she's been paid.”

Jim Volz, a former managing director of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and an arts consultant, said established festivals the size of Nebraska's should expect to pay an artistic director $80,000 to $180,000.

Phaneuf and board members declined to reveal her salary, although Phaneuf said it was a small fraction of the lower figure.

The organization's 2007 filing with the IRS, the latest available, listed no employees who were paid more than $50,000, the threshold for reporting salaries on the form for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations.

Phaneuf's reputation is international. A past president and founding member of Sneed's Shakespeare association, she organized a 2000 conference in London that — for the first time — brought together leaders of all the major Shakespeare companies from nations such as the United States, Canada, England and Australia. She also is known for her professional casting contacts, team-building skills and ability as a stage director.

Phaneuf resigned Aug. 19 after the recession led the Nebraska Shakespeare Festival board to slash its budget and season by about a third this year. The popular free festival runs in Elmwood Park each summer, drawing an estimated 15,000 people and adding to the city's cultural and economic vitality. A valuable educational resource, the festival's tour and school workshops bring Shakespeare alive for students of all ages.

Phaneuf's departure and the subsequent search for a replacement illustrate the serious challenges facing the festival, some of which are common to numerous area arts organizations during these tough economic times.

It may not be easy to retain the small army of volunteers loyal to Phaneuf, essential to the festival's survival. And it will remain hard to raise money to support the free shows at a level of quality audiences now expect.

Friction between those who raise the money and the artists and volunteers who put on the shows bubbled just below the surface both before and after Phaneuf's decision to leave. Phaneuf said the cutbacks lessened the quality of the shows.

“In the last two or three years, there's been a noticeable shift artistically,” said D. Scott Glasser, who has directed festival shows with Phaneuf for the past 12 years. “It's not just the cutbacks but the culture of the festival.”

How people work together, how they treat each other and how decisions are made lack the collaboration they once had, he said.

Melissa Marvin, the board's chairwoman when Phaneuf resigned, said that from her perspective, board support never wavered on Phaneuf's job performance as artistic director.

“Her shoes will be hard to fill,” Marvin said.

But, she added, it's one thing to want a Shakespeare festival and another to make it happen financially.

The festival is not alone in its struggles. An estimated 10 percent of American arts organizations — 10,000 of them — are expected to go under because of the recession, according to Americans for the Arts, a service organization and advocate for arts nonprofits.

Nationally, ticket sales, individual donations, foundation support and endowments all are down for Shakespeare festivals. And because the Nebraska festival does not charge admission, it depends on fundraising and donations for 85 percent of its budget, making it more vulnerable.

“It's a question we all struggle with, money raisers versus those of us who make the art,” said Sneed of the national Shakespeare group. “People who pay think they get to control it. It's understandable. But in general, those who bring in the money are not the ones who know how” to make great theater.

Phaneuf, he said, knows how.

Among the nation's 220 Shakespeare festivals, Volz ranked Nebraska's in the top 20 percent artistically.

“The fact that NSF has produced shows at the level it has on such a small budget is nothing short of miraculous,” he said.

Pairing professional directors and actors with the best of university faculty and students produces cost-effective quality, he said. And the festival's partnership with two universities, Creighton and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is crucial, he said, because of in-kind contributions from faculty (such as Phaneuf, a UNO professor), use of rehearsal and scene-shop facilities, storage and more.

Glasser, head of undergraduate theater at UNO, said the festival is a strong recruiting tool for both faculty and graduate students in theater, who are drawn to working with professional actors.

Perhaps as valuable as its educational component is the festival's contribution to Omaha's cultural scene and its economy.

“It pumps hundreds of thousands of dollars into the community every year,” Volz said, citing wages, construction materials, food and more. He estimated the festival's impact on the local economy at $2.5 million to $3 million a year.

This summer, as word of the cutbacks spread, festivalgoers dug deeper to support it. Attendance fell by 46 percent, to 10,700, partly because the eliminated third weekend usually draws the biggest crowds.

But even with fewer performances, audience contributions nearly tripled to more than $20,000, souvenir sales rose 43 percent and concessions sales 15 percent.

Marvin said the goal is to return to two shows and three weekends next summer, “regardless of how tough times are.” That will take more money than was raised for 2009, she said.

“All I care is that we continue to have great productions, keep it free and continue to grow as an organization,” she said.

Mike Markey, who was the festival's marketing director for 18 years, said he thinks the festival will endure as an asset to the community.

“But whether it will have what Cindy brought to it remains to be seen.”

Phaneuf's hard work and vision, he said, kept performance standards and community involvement high.

“The festival belongs as much to the audience as to the actors,” he said. “That's always been a very special relationship.”

Contact the writer:

444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com

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