Board Updates

Message From the Board

Thank you for visiting the Victory Gardens Theater website. After more than two difficult years with canceled and abbreviated seasons, low audience turn-out, and artistic leadership and staffing challenges, there are currently no planned productions at Victory Gardens Theater. Since 1974, the historic Victory Gardens Theater has been delivering stories to the stage that help ignite social change for a better world. Victory Gardens Theater will endure and remains committed to its mission to nurture relevant, new theatrical work reflecting the diverse stories of our world and contributing to the vitality of American Theater. Amid this challenging time, the Board of Directors has made the considered decision to transition the organization to a foundation. Currently, the Board of Directors is working through details, and aims to release a comprehensive plan as soon as it is able. Until then, we thank you for visiting our website and hope to have your continued support in these efforts as we approach the theater’s 50th anniversary. Best regards,The Victory Gardens Theater Board of Directors

An Open Letter to Woolly Mammoth Theater and its Signatories as well as the Theater Community

We wanted to respond to the open letter and petition circulated by Woolly Mammoth asking boards to commit to deeper, more sincere dialogue with artists and staff. In the open letter and petition, Woolly Mammoth leverages the situation that happened at our theater as a cautionary tale to encourage theaters to sign on to the position. It is common knowledge that Victory Gardens Theater has been navigating significant challenges and changes, and significant change does not happen overnight.

First, we want to say that we fully share in this commitment Woolly Mammoth is advocating for and are happy to sign on to this petition to signify our continued commitment to deeper, more sincere dialogue with artists and staff. However, while we applaud Woolly Mammoth’s vigilance and passion to protect and improve the theater industry, we want to share our disappointment that Woolly Mammoth issued this letter and request without knowing the details of what happened – or even asking for these details.

For those who know Victory Gardens more intimately, it was apparent that the criticisms cast by Woolly Mammoth reflected meaningfully uninformed judgments regarding the Victory Gardens’ Board priorities and plans. At its core, this letter should have been a dialogue between two organizations with mutual values on how to deliver diverse and vital theater to the community. Since Woolly Mammoth does not have the full details on what happened at Victory Gardens Theater, we’d like to share more information of the events in the letter and correct the misinformation. The details are complex and track back to 2020, but below is a summary of events.