Debt Free!
Although 2022 was at best a conflicted year for Pronoia Theater we did manage to achieve one major goal that's eluded us for some time: we are now completely out of debt (for the time being)!
The company isn’t entirely self-supporting, several expenses (most notably asset library subscriptions and this website itself) are still paid out of pocket by Aaron and Steven, but the business hit a high-water mark of debt in 2020 around $5000, which we have fully paid back.
This debt primarily represents capital purchases: our sound system being the chief cost, but also investment in merchandise, and start-up expenses.
We had originally expected to pay down our debt by the end of 2020 with revenue from shows, but we know how that went. We get minimal donations for our online work, in 2021 we discovered about $1500 in repairs and new acquisitions were needed, and our ticket sales at live shows are still down by about 400% from where they were in 2019, leading to a much longer time to pay everything back.
Paying down this debt allow the following:
The company will need to take less money from each show so we can allocate a greater percentage to paying our performers*
We can focus on moving the out-of-pocket expenses for the business currently paid by Aaron and Steven to the business (making it self-supporting)
We can plan for larger projects and bigger budgets, potentially finding a way to do a large staged show!
No matter how you slice it we’re excited for this development, and are looking forward to everything we can do in the future! In the grand tradition of theaters this is a great time to say: we’re doing great, help us do even better by making a donation (or purchasing something from our store)!
*This is a complex topic, very much a battle of ideals v. practicality, and if people would like to know more about how Pronoia handles it let me know, and I’ll address that topic in the future!
