501C3?

Well, a quick google search to the Beatrice city website says they're charging $65 for a season pass or five bucks a head to the (apparently) city owned water park. So, your city appears to be financing projects that do require admission. Your prices aren't that much more than a movie, really. Theater audiences tend to be more educated and therefore usually wealthier. The resentment might have as much to do with that as with the actual cost.

Is there not an ARTS COUNCIL in your town?  Here where I live, there is an Arts Council who is funded partially by the city, partially by private and/or corporate donation and the money is divvied up among all the arts groups from the theater companies to the small individual groups.  Apparently there is a deep rooted opinion among the members of the city council who think that the rich people are the only ones to whom you are catering.  And ANY IDIOT of any community - with ANY half brain or sense - KNOWS that MOST theater companies are NOT making much money at all with the exception of making enough to keep a building going and enough to produce the NEXT show - much less a season of shows.  It's just a closed-minded group apparently.

Unfortunately, this is a problem that exists - and has existed - for a long, long time here in the good ol' USA.  There is headway being made in many cities due to, of all things, globalization.  There are two books out that I believe lay all the groundwork - although there are many more supporting or contributing to the thinking of these books.  They are Richard Florida's "The Rise of the Creative Class" and Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat".  I won't do a review of these books, here, but a couple of the key points is that business as usual is now a dead end and success - personal, business, and community development - is going to the innovators.  As a society, we must become more and more creative and innovative if we are going to be competitive.  Florida tells us that the most successful and healthiest communities will be creative communities.  More and more public officials are paying attention to this thinking - that's the very dim light at the end of a very long tunnel. 

Unfortunately, we cannot sit back and wait for someone else to wake up our community leaders to today's realities.  As community theatres, we now have much more to offer our communities than ever before.  But we have to be a part of the solution.  On my web site I address this exact issue in an article I wrote entitled "Putting the community into community arts and putting community arts into the community."  I know, long winded title, but the point is critical.  One of the things I say in that article is that we have to not just become arts leaders, we have to become community leaders.  We need to come out from our studios, our theatres, our galleries, our recital halls and make ourselves known to community leaders.  This is not an overnight fix - this is a long term process. (If you're interested in the article, go to http://www.artskibitzer.com and hit the "scribblings and useful links" button.)

I'll be specific about something I accomplished at a community theatre I managed several years ago.  When I started at the theatre, I began to attend neighborhood community development committee meetings and the meetings of other civic organizations.  The theme I was promoting was that for decades our theatre had been a quiet neighbor, now we were going to become a good neighbor by getting involved with our immediate community in a positive way.  I had put together a fairly significant facility renovation and upgrade program.  Part of that effort was to invite the various elected officials at the city, county, and state level that represented the district in which we were located to functions at the theatre.  I eventually had a meeting with them and discussed our capital improvement projects and the positive impact that would have on their district.  We were investing in our neighborhood and we hoped they would find a way to invest in us.  Out of the blue one day I got a call from our city councilman.  He had secured $100,000 of city funding - a city that was on the brink of bankruptcy, by the way! - for our improvement campaign.  I leveraged that grant to secure another $175,000 from foundations along with a few other funding sources.  We ended up with just over $400,000 over about a 3 year period for much needed capital improvements. 

It can happen.  It just takes some time and a lot of outreach.  I don't want to make this story sound like it's an easy thing to do. I spent a lot of time with a lot of people that yielded nothing concrete - but I believe all that effort created a bit of "buzz" in the neighborhood.  And I got lucky, but I paved the road to lucky by networking and educating key officials in our neighborhood and community. 

The point of all this is:  As frustrating as it is, don't get mad - get involved.

Oh, and forgot to mention in my last post that we have been receiving great support from our city now for the last several years with growing dollars.  A couple local elected officials are now season ticket holders and several more come to the theatre on a regular basis.