Signature Theatre Finalizes New $5 Million Loan Deal

The Tony-winning Signature Theatre, which has been working for several years with Arlington County and its lenders to develop a sustainable operating model, has successfully reached a deal that will help the company continue to produce great work.

The Washington Post confirmed that the theater, currently staging the world premiere of Sheryl Crow's DINER, has received a new $5 million loan from the Arlington County Board.

Per the report: "Board members said they would support a recommendation to stop funding the money-losing Artisphere and close it at the end of June. But they unanimously approved a major financial restructuring for Signature, forgiving a $2.7 million bank loan, loaning another $5 million at 1 percent interest and allowing the theater company to operate rent-free until the 19-year loan is paid back. Some $411,000 in overdue taxes and utility bills were forgiven."

Board members sided with Signature due to its "viable business strategy," if it were able to "restructure its debt," according to the Post.

"This has been characterized as a bailout of Signature, and that's not the case," county manager Barbara Donnellan told the publication. "It's a loan...a public-private partnership."

Artisphere, however, has struggled to bring in audience members and receive donations since it opened its doors.

Signature's James Gardiner elaborated on the deal in an email to BroadwayWorld, saying: "Signature Theatre approached its landlord, Arlington County, several years ago because the terms of Signature's lease and debt service agreements in its current building required the organization to pay facility-related costs that were out of proportion to its operating budget and were not consistent with Arlington's financial policies for its other arts facilities. After a long, thoughtful negotiating process, a new financing plan was proposed, including a new 19-year lease on the facility and a concurrent restructuring of Signature's debt service. This new lease and loan deal serves both Signature Theatre and Arlington County moving forward, ensuring Signature's long-term sustainability as an economic and cultural anchor for a thriving Arlington neighborhood, Shirlington Village. This plan gives Signature more freedom to invest its resources into the theatre's mission: to continue to present world premiere plays and musicals and maintain free education and outreach programs that engage the area's increasingly diverse population and target those traditionally underserved by the arts."

Recipient of the 2009 Regional Theatre Tony Award, Signature Theatre is a non-profit professional theater company in Arlington, Virginiadedicated to producing contemporary musicals and plays, reinventing classic musicals, and developing new work. Under the leadership of co-founder and Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer and Managing Director Maggie Boland, Signature has presented 38 world premiere productions and is renowned for combining Broadway-quality productions with intimate playing spaces.

In addition to hosting the finest talent from the DC metropolitan area and New York, Signature has been home to such theatre luminaries as Chita Rivera, George Hearn, Hunter Foster, Emily Skinner, Ann Reinking, Marc Kudisch, Judy Kuhn, John Kander and Fred Ebb, Cameron Mackintosh, Terrence McNally, and the company's signature composer, Stephen Sondheim. Since its founding in 1989,Signature has won 90 Helen Hayes Awards for excellence in the Washington, DC region's professional theater and has been honored with 340 nominations.