The public meeting/demonstration was just the latest salvo in a controversy that has snowballed over the past several weeks, beginning with the announcement on June 16 that Theisen, who had been artistic director at Skylight for the past five seasons (and also works steadily at the national level as a freelance director of operas and musicals), would not be returning in that post for the company’s upcoming 50th anniversary season. The job of artistic director has been eliminated entirely in what Skylight management described as a cost-cutting measure in the face of financial difficulties. But some Theisen supporters suspected a power grab by Dillner, who joined Skylight as managing director in 2008 after a stint at Shreveport Opera in Louisiana. Dillner is also an opera singer.

Since that announcement, the company has seen over two dozen artists pull out of upcoming shows, fired at least one—resident music director Jamie Johns—for “insubordination” (according to what Johns told the Journal Sentinel) and fired two others for messages critical of Skylight management that were made on a Facebook page. In an attempt to improve the rapidly deteriorating situation, the board, at a meeting on July 23, chose Kurtenbach to replace current president Suzanne Hefty (who will remain on the board) and added a position called the “vice president of artist relations” to the board roster, to be filled by current board member Tessa Bartels.

Neither Theisen nor Dillner could be reached for comment. However, Kristin B. Godfrey, Skylight’s marketing director, stresses that the decision to eliminate the artistic director’s job wasn’t entirely Dillner’s call—the four members of the board’s executive committee (out of 37 board members) decided that it was fiscally necessary.

“Last November, there was an initial budgetary shortfall of $400,000 projected,” says Godfrey. Initially, the company sought to cut costs by cutting down on actor salaries (including putting a moratorium on hiring out-of-town talent), other personnel costs, and the marketing budget. “In January, it looked liked we would have a balanced budget,” says Godfrey.

However, the company’s endowment, like those of many other nonprofits, took a hit after the economic meltdown last September, and the United Performing Arts Fund (UPAF), a major source of nonprofit arts funding in Milwaukee, dropped their overall budget from $10 million to $9 million between the 2007-08 and 2008-09 season, meaning a cut in the amount of UPAF money that Skylight had planned to use for their upcoming season.

“We realized in March and April that we’re going to have another $200,000 projected shortfall,” says Godfrey. “There was nothing left to cut except programs or personnel. Skylight is an interesting beast, because our shows make our budget. Cutting a show doesn’t cut money out of our budgets. We make more money on our shows, so we can’t just cut a show and save money.” The company, which has a projected budget of $3.3 million for 2009-10, offers five shows in its 350-seat mainstage and two in the smaller studio space.

Initially, Theisen had agreed to stay on as a freelance director for four of the shows in the upcoming season, including the season opener, The Barber of Seville. However, by July 20, he had changed his mind after job offers to two performers slated for The Barber of Seville were rescinded. Jon Stewart and Bryce Lord received letters on July 17 from then-president of the board Hefty, citing statements critical of Skylight management that they had made on Facebook. Stewart’s letter, which he provided to Performink, reads, “Due to your recent written statements on Facebook concerning Skylight Opera Theatre , the offer to provide services in Skylight Opera Theatre ’s 2009-10 production of Barber of Seville is hereby withdrawn. Your statements violate what we consider are the obligations of artists who perform at the Skylight Opera Theatre .”

So what were these offensive comments? According to Stewart, there was a posting on someone else’s Facebook page that went up within hours after the June 16 announcement about Theisen’s firing.

“An individual artist had made a statement that if Clair Richardson, the founder of Skylight, were around today, he’d put a cigar out in somebody’s eye.”

Stewart says that both he and Lord added comments to this, without mentioning anyone in particular. “I think Bryce said, ‘I’ll hold them down,’ and I said, ‘I’ll bring the baseball bat.’” Says Stewart, “It was very tongue-in-cheek. No one took it seriously.”

However, a PDF of the comments string made it to the board, and the letters then went out. Stewart says he had already decided to leave and had in fact sent e-mails to both Theisen and Skylight management indicating that he wouldn’t perform in Barber when the letter from Hefty arrived.

“What was really upsetting is that Kristin Godfrey knows me and Bryce personally and professionally. She could have immediately spoken to the fact that someone could have been in contact with us to know what was going on.”

Godfrey says that Dillner has been the recipient of “physical threats, phone calls, letters, e-mails.” She also disputes that Dillner’s decision represents a grab for power. “Eric doesn’t make any decisions just because of what Eric wants. He will be seeking out the advice of others.”

However, Stewart says that lack of transparency from both Dillner and the board led to the frustrations that have boiled over with Skylight artists this summer. “The ‘plan’ for moving forward hadn’t been shared with the community at all.” Stewart also notes that, although a group of 30 out-of-town artists who sent a group letter in protest of the Theisen firing received a response, to his knowledge no locals have received similar correspondence.

“Based on comments that have come up when the artistic department was cut, it seems like there was a movement to get Bill out for at least six months,” Stewart said, although he didn’t name anyone directly. “Some people, once they lost their jobs, they were sharing that there had been comments made that people weren’t taking seriously at the time, and then when it happened, they realized they were serious. There was a group around Dillner.”

Godfrey, who joined Skylight eight months ago after serving a similar role for Milwaukee Shakespeare (the company is now defunct), points out that Theisen is not the only one to lose his job due to budget cuts. “It’s not really a Bill vs. Eric argument. That’s the juicy story, but the people I feel worse for are my two box-office employees who made less money, who were less settled than Bill, and have fewer job skills than Bill. Skylight salaries are on the lower end of Milwaukee artistic salaries. He made twice what I do.”

Godfrey is now pulling double-duty as box office manager in addition to her marketing obligations. Asked if there has been a sharp increase in subscribers requesting refunds as a result of the board’s decision, Godfrey says, “I process about two refunds a day. They feel that they’re not getting the season they paid for. They are a little gun-shy. They read the blogs and the rumors. I don’t want to make anyone unhappy. I hope we can welcome them back. I wouldn’t say we have an outpouring of support at the box office. But when I speak to people in the community in what I would think of as our demographic, they don’t understand why people are reacting so angrily.”

The blogs referenced by Godfrey have been prominent. In addition to Strini (who made a public call for Dillner to resign on June 21), actor Tony Clements, proprietor of Tuesdays blog, provided exhaustive coverage of the events, which ended up linked at the New York Times. A Facebook page entitled “Bring Back Bill Theisen to Skylight” has 450 members. Strini’s colleague, Journal Sentinel theatre critic Damian Jaques, also weighed in with an op/ed piece on July 30, in which he cited the need for greater respect for the contributions made by artists and for “including the artists as essential partners when challenges arise and crises occur.

“They are not fast food employees who can be summarily shuttled in and out. Haughtily referring to them as a mob, as a Skylight board member reportedly did, reveals a stunning lack of understanding as well as a sickening arrogance.”

(Ironically, both Strini and Jaques are now gone as staff members of the Journal Sentinel. The two men took buyout offers from the newspaper.)

The “mob” allegedly referenced by a board member has been holding peaceful meetings and protests since the Theisen decision was made, including one involving over 75 people on June 19 outside Skylight’s home at the Broadway Theatre Center, requesting a public forum to discuss the matter. Stewart describes that event as “the bagel rally. No one had protest signs—just coffee and bagels and doughnuts. It was the most peaceful protest anyone had ever seen.”

Out of that grew a Milwaukee artists’ forum that has been meeting every Friday morning. Stewart notes that it doesn’t just include Skylight artists and patrons, but also involves other Milwaukee artists and arts lovers.

Stewart attended about half of the Catalano Square meeting on July 24. Bartels, the new vice president of artist relations, wasn’t in attendance.

“I don’t think it healed anything. It just really reinforced that the current management, including the board, really don’t care about the artistic community and the artists in the city. One of the actresses who was there publicly asked Dillner if the most responsible thing for him to do would be to step down. That was followed by about a minute of applause.

“The next six weeks is when everyone is keeping the closest eye on Dillner to see if he can build bridges, but the bridges have turned to ash. They’re gone.”

Says Godfrey, “I respect the level of passion that the artists feel. I don’t feel like I could ever have forecast this differently. There are very many things that could have been or should have been handled differently, and everyone admitted that. The board has admitted it. No one is saying, ‘We handled this just right.’ What this has taught us is that we really need to work hard to communicate with each other and not be afraid to express the hurt and the thoughts and the feelings.”

The Skylight imbroglio is just the latest in a series of cases this year where artists have protested board actions. There was the well-publicized exodus of American Theater Company ensemble members after the board took action to remove actors who were in a dispute with artistic director PJ Paparelli from the ensemble. The elimination of the artistic director’s position at BoarsHead Theater in Lansing, Michigan, held by Kristine Thatcher, a longtime Chicago actor and member of the Victory Gardens playwrights’ ensemble, led to at least two vets—John Peakes and Carmen Decker—canceling plans to perform at the venue. BoarsHead, like Skylight, now places the responsibility for artistic direction on its executive director, John Dale Smith. More recently, the board of Theatre Building Chicago has fired executive director Joan Mazzonelli, and artistic director John Sparks is stepping down in protest.

(For a timeline of events at Skylight, see http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/51794732.html. There is also an archive of Tom Strini’s excellent and exhaustive coverage of the unfolding story at the site.)