SIMPLY A&E
on stage
Left: Georgia Shakespeare co-chair Ashley G. Preisinger and managing director Lauren Morris. Right: Preisinger promises a “crowd-pleasing” season. Photos by Sara Hanna
Chairman of the
Bard
Volunteer aims to put theater on solid financial ground
A
shley G. Preisinger traces her love of theater back to The Tater Patch Players. That was the community thespian group her grandmother started in their hometown of Jasper, Ga., in the late ’70s. Preisinger was just a kid then. Today the Brookhaven resident is a wealth manager with the Buckhead firm Homrich Berg and a volunteer with her own neighborhood theater, Georgia Shakespeare. As the board co-chair of the acclaimed professional playhouse on the Oglethorpe University campus, Preisinger is using her grandmother’s Southern charm and her own deep roots in the city’s business community to help the financially troubled institution turn a corner. Last fall, Georgia Shakes had to decide whether “to be or not to be.” Beaten down by a slow economy, the theater had to choose whether to close down for good—or go public with its cash-shortage problem. Fortunately, it chose to fight. Fueled by a grassroots campaign that caused patrons to empty their piggy banks and write heartfelt letters, Georgia Shakes surpassed its halfmillion-dollar fundraising goal and is now in the midst of its 27th summer season (see sidebar). It hired a new managing director (Lauren Morris), revived its popular spring kickoff in Piedmont Park and partnered with The Goat Farm and Scoutmob on its recent gala. Still, Preisinger, a former Invesco executive with an MBA from Emory, remains cautiously optimistic. “Now we have a really big obligation to have a successful 2012,” says the
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Homrich Berg director of client development and marketing. We recently sat down with Preisinger—wife of The Coca-Cola Company executive Mark Preisinger and mother of 12-year-old Katie and 10-year-old Brooke— to talk about everything from Shakespeare to her love of competitive shooting. What happened at Georgia Shakespeare last year? We went into the summer knowing that we had our work cut out for us. A couple of big individual donors and corporate donors had not come in at the level they had in years past so that was a gap we had to make up. We spent the summer quietly making as many phone calls as we could and trying to replace those funds. … We got to a point in mid-September—it was a very painful series of meetings—where we realized we were out of options. We had no choice. We either shut our doors or we deal with it more publicly to see what kind of response we get. Does the community want us here? What was the response? When all was said and done, we raised $524,000. So we actually surpassed our ($500,000) goal. And the best part of the story, I think, is that it came from 2,000 different donors. It wasn’t from five or six who stepped up and wrote checks. Now what? Right now we have to come up with just a really strong 12-month strategy that’s going to deliver profitability to the organization.
story:
Wendell Brock
How do you feel about the season? It’s probably one of our more crowd-pleasing lineups. … If ever there was a year when we lean on more of the box office, it’s this one. Tell us about your life outside the boardroom. I am a real outdoors person. I love going to Blast classes here in Buckhead. I think Blast900 is the best fitness studio around. I love to hike over by the Chattahoochee River. I take my family out there or sometimes just go walk with girlfriends. I love to shoot. I’m in The Annie Oakley Shooters. Shooting sporting clays is one of my all-time favorite pastimes. I shoot some tournaments. So you carry a gun? I do. I have a 20-gauge Beretta over/under. But I don’t carry it with me unless I’m going shooting. I don’t shoot pistols very well. I’m more of a shotgun girl. n
At Georgia Shakespeare this year “Illyria: A Twelfth Night Musical.” June 6-Aug. 5 “Much Ado About Nothing.” June 21-Aug. 4 “The Importance of Being Earnest.” July 5-Aug. 3 “The Emperor and the Nightingale.” July 14-Aug. 3 “Macbeth.” Oct. 4-28
Georgia Shakespeare 4484 Peachtree Road N.E. Atlanta 30319 404.264.0020 www.gashakespeare.org