07/10/2002
The recent addition of two major theatre Companies to the rapidly growing Tessitura licensee base of symphonies, performing arts centers, operas and ballets highlights the industry leading position of Tessitura Software. The Stratford Festival is the largest classical repertory theatre in North America and the first Tessitura licensee outside of the United States. The Shakespeare Theatre is the first U.S. producing theatre company licensee. Tessitura is a proven enterprise-wide software management system selected by numerous North American arts organizations including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera, The Kennedy Center, Lyric Opera of Chicago, City Center, San Francisco Symphony, Seattle Opera, Houston Ballet and the Santa Fe Opera.
Jack Rubin, business and marketing director for Tessitura, commented, "The Stratford Festival and Shakespeare Theatre are great organizations who put on large numbers of performances each season. They desired advanced software capabilities for ticketing, fundraising and customer service. We are very pleased to have them in our Tessitura Network. Our technology is current; all functional areas of the software have been proven for multiple seasons; and the user interfaces are clean and intuitive. Our diverse user base highlights the fact that Tessitura is suitable for any size and type of arts organization that values their constituents and desires completely integrated software functionality."
Tessitura, originally developed by The Metropolitan Opera for its own use, was implemented in 1998 and replaced multiple separate systems that handled ticketing functions, fund raising, marketing, customer care and performance reporting. Smeeta Sharon, who is responsible for Business Operations at The Metropolitan Opera indicated, "Tessitura was designed by arts users for arts users. The primary system objective was to provide complete constituent management and excellent customer service using a seamlessly integrated platform for box office, fundraising and marketing purposes."
Mr. Rubin added, "These new licensees, like many others in the arts community, were attracted by both the power of our software and the simplicity of our business approach. The Tessitura business model involves a perpetual site license with a one-time license fee. Tessitura enables web sales and all other transactions to take place without any transaction fees due from licensees to Tessitura or any other 3rd party. A strong support team is in place to handle needs of Tessitura users."
About Tessitura
Tessitura is an enterprise software application that enables an integrated approach to "constituent management" for arts organizations. Using a single database of information, the system empowers the user organization to record, track and manage all contacts with its constituents, conduct highly targeted and cost-efficient marketing and fund raising appeals, handle all ticketing and membership transactions and provide detailed and flexible performance reports. Besides seamlessly providing efficient business, ticketing and development department operations, a key benefit of the system is its ability for relationship managers to have a full view of each constituent - their history, preferences and all contacts with the institution. Tessitura is owned by Impresario, L.L.C., a wholly owned subsidiary of The Metropolitan Opera.
Shakespeare Theatre -
www.shakespearetheatre.org
Since its "bold, breathless" (The Washington Post) production of Romeo and Juliet in 1986, The Shakespeare Theatre in the nation's capital, under Artistic Director Michael Kahn's leadership, has dedicated itself to becoming the premier classical theatre in the country. Each season, The Theatre presents five plays by Shakespeare and other classical playwrights in its 451-seat performance space in the heart of Washington, DC's Pennsylvania Quarter arts district. Recently heralded as "The best classical theatre in the country, bar none," by The Christian Science Monitor, its lavish productions of the world's greatest works of theatre play to standing-room-only audiences night-in and night-out.
Stratford Festival -
www.stratfordfestival.ca
It's been 50 years since Tom Patterson's dream of a theatre festival in his home town of Stratford, Ontario came true, when Sir Alec Guinness stepped onto the unique thrust stage designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch, under the director of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, for the first performance of Richard III on July 13, 1953. In the intervening five decades, the Stratford Festival of Canada has grown from six weeks of performances of two plays in a tent to a six-month season featuring the largest classical repertory theatre company in North America under the direction of Artistic Director Richard Monette. The Festival is one of the world's leading Shakespeare companies and, annually, attendance tops 600,000 to works at the Festival's four venues: the 1,820-seat thrust stage Festival Theatre; the newly renovated 1,088-seat Avon Theatre; the 487-seat runway-thrust Tom Patterson Theatre; and the new 250-seat Studio Theatre, a smaller thrust theatre opening in 2002. The 2002 50th season features 18 productions, including seven works by William Shakespeare and six commissioned new Canadian plays, plus several other special performances and events.
Tessitura Software Contact:
Jack Rubin
214.265.1908
jrubin@tessiturasoftware.com
Shakespeare Theatre Press Contact:
Barry Colfelt
202.547.3230, extension 2320 bcolfelt@shakespearedc.org