Having seen all the press coverage, and the subsequent melt-down on my Twitter Feed (I know a fair number of Shax scholars - several of whom are doing, or have done, the MA in Shakespeare Studies, which is co-located at The Globe), I went and had a poke around the Charity Commission website, which is publicly accessible, so I'm not stating here anything confidential.
There is of course always something of a lag on these things, so the information I was reading was only Up To Date at October 2018, but it was a revealing read: They are indeed on shaky ground - expenditure almost matches income, and by their own reporting, whilst they aimed to have 3 to 6 months of reserves to meet running costs, they only had/have 1.5 months worth, but felt that, if something drastic happened, that they could reallocate some of the reserves they were holding onto for various capital projects (which appeared to include a significant amount for maintenance of the buildings), and use those 'released monies' to fund another 1.5 month's worth of running costs.
Now all of this of course comes with the caveat that you can make accounts say almost anything you want, but Michelle Terry has been quoted in various media as saying that they run 'hand to mouth', which appears to be borne out by the reported figures.
If you want to read the accounts, here is the link:
apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Accounts/Ends16/0000266916_AC_20181031_E_C.pdf(hopefully that works)
I've been on a Zoom Call today that discussed the fact that if the theatres were re-opened tomorrow, that it would actually take a few weeks to be able to re-open to audiences, and that, for Commercial Theatres, the costs of mounting any show - even bringing back something that was running, would probably be at least 50% of the Capitalisation. If you consider that for a WE Musical, we are talking £Millions, and also think that The Globe does runs in rep of several shows, that £5million they're talking about needing rapidly starts to look quite conservative.
And I haven't even thrown in the difficulties of Social Distancing in a theatre - which no-one, as yet, seems to have an answer to that would be palatable to a UK audience, or the Commercial Producers (temperature testing and/or use of masks is one thing - sitting apart from each other makes the entire business model nonviable pretty much instantly).
Oh - and as a final kicker, whilst Emma Rice might have been a controversial appointment, she does appear to have brought in the cash - as evidenced by the 'this year/last year' financial figures and narrative in the Accounts...
