Culture Chronicle

Cherry Lane Says Stage to Darken Over Deficit
The New York Times - July 28, 2010
By Felicia R. Lee

The Cherry Lane Theater will not produce plays on its main stage for a year beginning in September, and possibly longer, to buy time to cope with a deficit of roughly $167,000 through the 2010 fiscal year.

Angelina Fiordellisi, the artistic director at the nonprofit Cherry Lane, a Greenwich Village institution since 1924, attributed the shortfall to a 40 percent drop in income from government and foundation support, ticket sales and rental fees. The recent five-week run of "Nunsense," while breaking even, did not earn enough to avoid a reorganization plan approved by the Cherry Lane board for the next fiscal year. "It's a huge disappointment -- a heartbreak actually," Ms. Fiordellisi said in an interview on Tuesday. "We just need to use this season as a time to assess and stabilize," she said, adding that the Cherry Lane canceled its main stage productions for one season after the 9/11 attacks.

The Cherry Lane, at 38 Commerce Street, has a 179-seat main stage and a 60-seat studio. It has been managed by the Cherry Lane Alternative, a resident theater company that mounts one or two main stage productions annually, filling the theaters for about 12 weeks a year. For the rest of the time the Cherry Lane rents the spaces to other nonprofits, including StageFARM and the New York International Fringe Festival, as well as commercial companies. (The theater has also leased a third space, the 90-seat Cherry Pit, at 155 Bank Street.) For the full article, click here