Mad Cow Theatre, Orlando move closer to settling $350,000 debt

Mad Cow Theatre’s nearly $350,000 in public debt could soon be wiped off the books, giving Orlando’s only professional downtown theater a muchneeded boost.

After talks that stretch back years, an agreement between the city of Orlando and the 20-year-old theater company could be reached “in 60-90 days,” a city official says.

Even if the deal is successful, though, Mad Cow won’t be completely out of the woods: A recent audit of its books for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2016, shows the theater also owed $139,175 to credit cards and other accounts payable. In addition, $204,779 was owed on other long-term loans taken out by the theater, with some of the loans from staff and board members.

The audit, paid for by the city, also showed that the theater finished its 2016 fiscal year with a

deficit, spending about $344,000 more than it took in.

A Mad Cow Theatre spokeswoman said the theater already has made progress in paying off that debt.

“We’re on the upswing, we’re meeting challenges, and things are moving ahead,” said Elizabeth Maupin, vice president of the theater’s board of directors. “I feel like we’re solving problems.”

In the past year, the theater has quadrupled its fundraising, in part by adding board members, Maupin said, and cut its short-term debt in half. Financial results for the most recent fiscal year are not yet available.

Mad Cow mostly owes the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, or CRA, for cost overruns incurred when the company’s space on Church Street was converted into a theater complex in 2011-12. But the city and the theater agree that unplanned expenses were not the fault of Mad Cow.

“The City of Orlando Public Works Department managed the construction, and Mad Cow Theatre had no control over the cost overruns,” wrote Thomas Chatmon, executive director of the CRA, in an open letter for the theater to use when seeking grants.

“We are currently discussing the terms under which the CRA would agree to forgive the debt, and I urge you to consider those circumstances in assessing Mad Cow Theatre’s grant application,” continued the letter, written in mid-August.

No one will say what conditions for forgiving the debt are being discussed, but most likely they would include offering free programs or performances for low-income city residents and students, similar to a deal struck when Orlando Ballet moved into a cityowned building.

“We would like to figure out how to give something back to the city,” said Maupin, a former theater critic for the Orlando Sentinel.

A murkier part of the debt forgiveness involves a common-area maintenance fee, which runs about $2,000 per month.

Mad Cow officials say they don’t think the theater will ultimately be responsible for the recurring charge; a city spokeswoman points to the 2011 agreement that shows the theater agreed to pay a portion of the fee beginning in December 2012 and then the entire fee from December 2013 until the end of its 20-year sublease.

All parties agree that finding a sustainable business model for the critically acclaimed nonprofit theater is the ultimate goal.

“We’re looking for a definitive long-term solution so we’re not back in the same situation two, three, four or five years down the road,” Chatmon said. ““We want to come up with the right solution, not a rushed solution.”

A big part of that solution is clearing the debt to the city, Maupin said. The blot on the theater’s books deters would-be donors and reduces grants available to the theater — which is why Chatmon wrote the open letter.

The theater’s organizational structure might have to change, as well. Retired business executives offered advice, Maupin said, but it was rudimentary. The theater is still considering a full organizational assessment, she said, but the board wants to ensure the time and money spent on such an undertaking would be worth it.

Board members are more committed than ever to the theater’s future, she said.

“We’re confident in the kind of theater we produce, and the quality of the theater we produce,” she said. “We do have problems, and we have to figure them out, but they are problems that are solvable.”