A letter from the President of the Board of Trustees:

July 24, 2020

Dear Friends,

As President of The Portland Players Board of Trustees, I am writing to you today with my heart truly on my sleeve.

Under normal circumstances, rehearsals would be well underway for the first show of our season. The theater would be coming alive and buzzing with activity. We would be making plans for our 90th (yes, 90th!) anniversary celebration. Unfortunately, we are living in times that are anything but normal.

With the onset of COVID-19 earlier this year, we made the decision to suspend our Young Actors Workshop and subsequently cancelled our final two productions of the 2019-2020 season, one of which was days from opening. It was a heartbreaking end to the season, and while we’re not entirely sure how our upcoming 2020-2021 season will play out, we have decided to cancel our first two productions. Our top priority must continue to be the safety and well-being of our patrons, performers, production personnel and volunteers.

The ramifications of this pandemic are far-reaching. It has challenged us all in a myriad of ways and will continue to do so in the weeks and months to come. For Players, our biggest challenge is a significant budgetary deficit. With four shows cancelled thus far, and ticket sales accounting for 80% of our revenue, well, you don’t have to be a math whiz to see that we need to think outside the box.

The Players Board of Trustees is committed to working diligently to figure this out. We have some solid fundraising initiatives that we are vetting and look forward to sharing with you. There is much we can and will do to fill the funding deficit, but we cannot do this alone.

I know we are all going through so much right now in this time of unrest and uncertainty. It’s incredibly hard for me to ask, but I would be truly humbled if you would consider a gift, in any amount, to our theater. We are a community. We are your community and the theater needs you now more than ever.

Yes, we’ve been around for 90 years and we can’t wait for the day — and it will come! — when we can revel together in this magnificent milestone. With you standing beside us, I’m confident we can make it, at least, another 90 years.

Yours,

Michael Donovan

President, The Portland Players

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