Theater loses contract with Roswell, moves operation to Marietta

By AMBER PERRY amber@appenmedia.com

ROSWELL, Ga. — For now, the website for the Roswell Cultural Arts Center says it is “proud to have the Georgia Ensemble Theatre as its resident artist company,” but that relationship is changing.

After more than 30 years of residency in Roswell, the professional mainstage plays at Georgia Ensemble Theatre (GET) will have a new home at the Jennie T. Anderson Theatre in Marietta.

Its contract was canceled at a Roswell Recreation Commission meeting in early March with a recommendation that the theater enter the Roswell Cultural Art Center’s Partnership Production contract model.

Since its founding in 1992, the Georgia Ensemble Theatre has operated under a Resident Theatre contract which allowed the company to handle all things related to production.

But in Fiscal Year 2022, the theater presented only three of the five agreedupon productions. There were 47 “dark days” with no programmed activities. The city also cited a high turnover in production managers at GET, four managers in two years.

Production has a high price tag. GET co-founder Anita Allen-Farley said a play is about $60,000 to produce and musicals are well over $100,000.

“It’s expensive, and when you don’t have the money, you have to go … ‘how can we adjust to satisfy our patrons?’” Allen-Farley said. “By moving things around, by postponing different shows.”

Allen-Farley and Mary Saville, GET communications director, sat inside the theater’s studio on Hembree Parkway April 4, discussing the Georgia Theater Ensemble’s big move.

City partnership

The new partnership model would have allowed Roswell to help the Georgia Ensemble Theatre with production and marketing, run its box office and patron services, then collect the revenue. David Crowe, Roswell Cultural Arts coordinator, said the city would have found an “equitable split” once paying technical fees.

Many local arts organizations had been struggling with money post-COVID, Crowe said. The city has fostered successful partnerships using a similar model over the past couple of years,

See THEATRE Page 10