After a prolonged silence that was attributed to legal obligations and the advice of lawyers, the Victory Gardens Theater board of directors hit back at its critics Wednesday by posting two open letters on its website, one directly addressing recent controversies at the nonprofit theater involving the exit of former artistic director Ken-Matt Martin and other staffers, and the other addressed to Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, a famously progressive nonprofit theater from Washington, D.C., that had implicitly accused the Victory Gardens board of poor stewardship.
“There has been a lot of conversation about what happened at our theater with accusations and even attacks and threats directed towards our board members. Now, we’d like to share our side of the story to correct the misinformation that has been spread and return our focus to nurturing relevant, new theater work that reflects the diverse stories of our world and contributes to the vitality of the American Theater,” the Victory Gardens letter said, as signed collectively by the board. Victory Gardens owns and operates the historic Biograph Theatre in Lincoln Park, which has been dark for months.
In July of last year, the board informed the theater’s staff that Martin, who had been hired in 2021, had been placed on leave and that the candidate for the open position of executive director, Marissa Lynn Ford, had withdrawn. Martin was later dismissed. In response, a group of artists affiliated with the theater resigned, and in September, Victory Gardens, with no plans to produce shows, dismissed its remaining staff.
The open letter spelled out criticisms of Martin. The letter alleges a “failure to create any show budgets and secure any theatrical agreements for an upcoming season,” leading the theater with no choice but to dismiss its remaining staffers due to there being nothing on its stages and no box office income. The letter also alleges that Martin “attempt(ed) to leverage the theater’s dire need for an executive director for personal gain. Amid Victory Gardens’ outstanding offer to an executive director candidate, Ken-Matt and the candidate jointly hired a lawyer in an attempt to redraft their contracts in a way that both contracts would be tied together and force Victory Gardens to offer them financial incentives that were clearly detrimental to the organization.”
“It’s not the truth,” Martin said in a telephone interview from Baltimore, where he is now interim artistic director at the Baltimore Center Stage, addressing allegations he did not create a season. “There were agreements that had been secured for the rights of plays. We were ready for a season announcement.”
Martin, who also said he had provided the basis for a budget, according to the requirements of his job description, acknowledged that he shared an attorney with the executive director candidate Ford, but said their negotiations with the board were merely the customary back and forth common in the industry. “I literally don’t know what they are talking about,” Martin said. Ford, now executive director of the League of Chicago Theatres, had no comment.
In an interview with the Tribune, the 48-year board member Fred Bates said the board had made an early commitment to equity and diversity at the theater and that they had been perplexed at the “vicious and troubling” attacks that had come their way from activists over the last several months.
“It feels like a tragedy that is so large but almost impossible to grasp,” Bates said, arguing that, in essence, the board did not know what hit them. “We ended up with (an internal) struggle without asking for one,” Bates said. “We were all in the same place. We all wanted the same things.”
Bates also said some of the board’s critics had displayed “a lack of knowledge” of the legal and fiscal obligations of a board of directors and a similar lack of understanding as to the theater’s financial situation in the difficult post-COVID environment when it found itself hemorrhaging subscribers and audience members.
Victory Gardens now has a newly hired interim executive director, Janeen Mays. In an interview, Mays said she was seeking out rental tenants for the theater, at least in the short term, and had already fielded inquiries from a variety of interested parties, including festival presenters, nonprofit companies and commercial producers. Mays said the theater is seeking tenants that are “consistent with its mission.”
Bates said the theater has no intention of shutting up shop but plans to “explore how we can continue with our mission” with future production not off the table. He added that the board “hopes to repair” its troubled relationships with many local theater artists.
By way of explanation for the letters, Bates said the board felt that “in order to move forward, we have to put this behind us.” Victory Gardens, a former winner of the Tony Award for excellence in regional theater, celebrates its 50th anniversary next year.
“I just went them to be a place that supports artists and playwrights,” Martin said. “I wish them nothing but the best.”
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
