Seventeen years after Jeff Daniels named a community theater after a Woody Allen film, Allen still contributes money to the Purple Rose—but not a lot.
The director of The Purple Rose of Cairo, who gave Daniels a wonderful romantic-lead role, was listed in the program for The Poetry of Pizza among many who gave $100 to $249. So was the local moving company Two Men and a Truck.
A few other movie types—among them the obscure actor Oscar Williams and the company that produced The Squid and the Whale, for which Daniels received a Golden Globe nomination—are also current Purple Rose Theatre donors. The list of those who’ve contributed $1,000 or more includes the Shubert Foundation, which owns or manages several Broadway theaters (Daniels has appeared in New York plays), and the Detroit Tigers, whose donations include tickets for other donors to attend Tigers games (Daniels is a longtime Tigers fan).
Collectively, donors contribute more than one-third of the Purple Rose’s $1.9 million annual operating budget. About 90 percent of them are local.
“We have the advantage of Jeff’s celebrity and Jeff’s draw,” says Alan Ribant, the managing director. Yet the theater also must combat the mistaken notion that Daniels bankrolls the entire operation.
Ribant says that Daniels, who serves as the theater’s executive director, donates “lots of time and money and energy” but cannot be counted on to keep the Purple Rose going, especially during an economic slowdown. “It’s always a struggle. This year’s going to be challenging,” Ribant says; ticket sales this season are down by about 8 percent.
Fund-raising helps keep prices affordable at the 168-seat theater, which sells about 40,000 tickets a year. This year the Purple Rose raised prices for the first time in three years, but only on weekend tickets.
