As a 501c3 nonprofit organization, the Brown County Playhouse relies heavily on funding from donors and grants.
Approximately $500,000 is needed every year to keep the doors of the Playhouse open and the 425 seat multi-genre entertainment venue operating in the way the community has come to know.
Of that budget, $40,000 is projected to come in from grant funding with $65,000 in donor sponsors and $100,000 in general donations.
“Half of our time is spent fundraising. We don’t function without donor sponsors, fundraisers. It has to come from outside,” Webb said during the March 10 Brown County Convention and Visitors Commission meeting.
“Ticket sales are nice and good, but the majority of the reason why we survive and are here is because we are supported by people who understand how important we are to our community.”
The Playhouse needs about $3,000 a week to cover baseline, overhead expenses. Each year the Playhouse has three fundraising appeals to get individual donations to help cover operational expenses. Recently, the Playhouse held a fundraiser to replace the cinema projector there, raising $40,000.
Webb took over as executive director six months ago. She attended the CVC meeting earlier this month to request funding for the Playhouse from the innkeepers tax. The CVC manages innkeepers taxes, a 5% tax on overnight room rentals in Brown County.
Last year was the first year the innkeepers tax brought in more than $1 million.
The Playhouse has been an attraction in the center of downtown Nashville since 1949 when it was first established as a barn theater. It was a joint project between local businessman A. Jack Rogers and Indiana University.
“It is such a legacy to us that Andy Rogers gave the land to IU where the current building that was built in 1977 is,” Webb said.
IU shuttered the Playhouse in 2010, and Brown County Playhouse Management Inc., a nonprofit management group, stepped in to take it over in 2011.
“When IU pulled out, they didn’t leave us a whole lot. We had a shell. We’ve had to put in seats, curtains, lighting and now here we are today,” Webb said, noting upgrades to the theater’s lighting.
Diverse programming is scheduled to happen three or four days a week for 50 weeks out of the year, including movies, local and national touring acts, plays and musicals, festivals and poetry readings.
“We are not the music center, but we have a huge impact. Just being small we still have a huge impact,” Webb said.
She noted that before the music center or the former Little Nashville Opry there was the Playhouse, bringing visitors to stay overnight in Nashville.
“You need more than one anchor point. We are legacy and have historical legacy in this town. … It (The Playhouse) brings a lot of people who are outside of our community — heads in beds — for the sheer fact that it is this and it has been here so long,” Webb said.
One example of the venue’s impact on tourism here and how it brings guests to spend a weekend in Brown County is the annual Fingerstyle Guitar Competition that happens every summer. The festival is produced locally.
In 2018, festival attendees spent on average $250 while in Nashville, according to Webb.
“They are spending the night, staying in our town and that adds $100,000 into the economy for one day. That is one day, one event, one high quality, good event. That is the impact that just one event can have on our economy,” she said.
Webb said any additional funding the Playhouse receives from innkeepers tax could be used to expand marketing and bring even more visitors here to experience Brown County, like purchasing radio advertising and advertisements in larger print publications.
Booking more “A-list acts” is also something funding could go towards.
As a nonprofit, Webb said the Playhouse has an obligation to serve its community and that means not charging high prices for A-list acts like Haywood Banks.
“For us, we are very happy when we get our expenses covered because that is part of the service to the community,” she said.
“I cannot charge $100 a ticket for people to come see Haywood Banks, which is what I would need to charge if I was really going to make a profit.”
She noted that A-list acts also bring first time visitors to the county and “raises perceived value of what the town has to offer.”
“When first time people come into Brown County, spend the night, they will see how wonderful it is and they will want to come back,” she said.
“If we raise the value of what is happening in that programming, we will raise the perceived value (of the county). Every tourist will want to come here. They will want to stay.”
Extra funding could also support more community theater. She said having locals involved with theater will turn them into the “most important” advocates for the town when tourists come to visit, bettering the experience for them.
“Who are you going to ask to find out the best place to stay at? You are going to ask a local,” she said.
The Playhouse is also working to host free events for the community and visitors alike, like having free Fourth Friday Festivals in conjunction with the Fourth Friday Village Art Walk in town and Boneyard World Revival poetry readings. The first night of poetry reading will be April 4.
“We are creating a community of people who are coming in,” Webb said.
How much innkeepers tax money the Playhouse should receive was left up to the CVC to decide. Webb shared the Playhouse’s budget with the board.
CVC member Jim Schultz suggested giving the Playhouse $60,000 in innkeepers tax funding each year, which was the initial amount needed for the Brown County Playhouse Management Committee Inc. to take possession of the venue from IU back in 2011. The Playhouse’s advertising budget is also $60,000, which covers designing and printing promotional materials.
“If you want to give us a dollar amount and then say ‘How did you spend this dollar amount?’ I can come up with a plan as to how we would like to spend those dollars,” Webb said.
CVC President Kevin Ault said the innkeepers tax money should be used for marketing the Playhouse only in order to bring more guests here who will stay overnight here, but that with the extra funding the current Playhouse marketing budget could be allocated elsewhere.
“If we are supplying $60,000 then you have $60,000 of your own money to use elsewhere,” he said.
Webb will attend the CVC meeting next month with a presentation on how the $60,000 will be spent on marketing. Ault said he hopes to have the final amount of innkeepers tax collected in 2021 by the meeting next month, too.
At the end of last year, Ault reported at a Brown County Council meeting that the innkeepers tax was at $1.1 million for the year with December collections still to come.
