The Madison Ballet is struggling to fill seats despite its high-interest artistic offerings, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. Amid a lean season for ticket sales, the ballet offered discounts for weekend performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Artistic director Ja’ Malik has received acclaim for his choreography since coming to Madison from New York in 2022, and Madison Ballet is reportedly on an artistic high as a result. Still, ticket purchases have still seen steep declines — sales for The Nutcracker were down 21% compared to the previous year — and board member Susan Schmitz said that with rising production costs, the nearly 45-year-old arts organization has funds to continue operation for only another six to 12 months.
Madison Ballet has not had a CEO since 2023, when Jonathan Solari left the company for a development director position with the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. From the time Solari joined the Madison Ballet staff in 2019 to his departure, he grew the organization’s annual budget from $1.1 million to $2.2 million. Today, Ja’ Malik said, the company’s budget is roughly $1.7 million. Sixty percent of it goes to productions and rental space, and 35% goes to salaries for the three-person administrative staff, 18 professional dancers and faculty for the Madison Ballet school.
