The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News October 1, 2004

OC theater forced to review budget

This year, student theater organizations reached their lowest point in a long time —in funding, that is. For their budget allocations this year, as decided by the Student Finance Committee after the most recent budget appeals, the Oberlin Student Theater Association received $3,054, the Oberlin Musical Theater Association received $2,367 and the Gilbert and Sullivan Players received the almost laughable sum of $292.56. As a result, the combined budget for all three major student theater organizations comparable to what OSTA and OMTA were allocated individually only a few years ago and student theater at Oberlin is feeling the squeeze.

“It’s virtually impossible to do what we need to do on the budget we have right now,” said junior Maggie Keenan-Bolger, a member of the boards for both OSTA and OMTA. “It’s been getting harder and harder to pay for the productions we’ve been putting up.”

Senior Abigail Stone, OMTA co-chair, agreed: “OMTA has pretty consistently not received anything like as much money as we ask for from SFC every year. I realize this happens to most student organizations, but sometimes I feel like SFC doesn’t really understand what it takes to produce three to four shows a year.”

It is a situation that has been getting progressively worse. In 1998-1999, OSTA and OMTA were each allocated about $4,400. Since that time, the total money that SFC allocates has increased by over 10 percent and student theater allocations have decreased by nearly 60 percent.

To students participating in theater on campus, these numbers tell an upsetting story; however, senior Rashné Limki, SFC treasurer, cautioned against drawing conclusions. “If you just look at numbers, you may get a warped picture because you need to really understand how the allocation process works,” she said. According to Limki, there are many factors involved in allocations, but a de-prioritization of student theater is not one of them. “There isn’t that much subjectivity.”

According to Limki, the allocations for most student organizations are handled in the same way. Student theater, however, is one of the exceptions. Student theater organizations do not have the same caps on their budgets as other student organizations and they are allocated money for only a certain number of shows. While this number has remained steady, the budget per show has been decreasing. This is, in part, due to SFC’s desire that student organizations economize. Another factor is that student theater organizations are simply not requesting as much money.

Junior Brandon Moreau, former OMTA treasurer, wrote the budget proposal for this year. According to Moreau, the proposal “requested the bare bones, based on last year’s expenses.” A budget request based on fundamental needs, he said, “would help us get the money we needed.” Moreau believes that the best solution for student theater is to depend more on ticket revenue.

Keenan-Bolger called OMTA’s budget request “a mix-up with our treasurer.”

According to junior Liza Dickinson, OSTA co-chair, the SFC process for student theater allocations is not appropriate for OSTA, which “serves a wider function in terms of giving money to and supporting a wider range of projects.” In addition to the six OSTA productions that SFC funds, OSTA historically has helped to support many other projects, such as honors projects and performing arts projects from other organizations. “I felt like across the board performing arts organizations get insultingly low allocations. The sort of things that we’re trying to do cost a fair amount of money,” she said.

Keenan-Bolger said that she hopes the quality of the productions will not be affected, but “it’s more of a bad experience for the directors and the actors. There was a production of Rhinoceros that went up in the ‘Sco—a huge production to put on and very expensive—and we just couldn’t pay for it. So [director Jon Levin] had to go to many, many dorms, some of which didn’t end up getting their money through in time and was going to have to pay money out of pocket. It’s just a really rough thing to have to deal with if you’re part of a production team. And it’s hard enough to put on shows as it is, but with money problems it makes it even worse.”

Dickinson agreed, citing the numerous obstacles already in place for student theater, most prominently the scarcity of rehearsal space. “If you’re in an OSTA production, you’ll be lucky to get studio space in Warner,” she said. Student productions are forced to scramble for space to rehearse. “I rehearsed out on the athletic fields once during my freshman year,” she said.

According to Keenan-Bolger, this situation is discouraging student directors. If budget problems worsen, “we won’t get the experienced people.”

Limki says that SFC cannot guarantee any increases. “We work with a limited amount of money and every year the number of student organizations keeps increasing.”
 
 

   

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