Jennifer Crockett’s decade running the Liberty Theatre
When the Liberty Theatre’s board went looking for a new executive director a decade ago, the Astoria Music Festival it had long hosted was coming apart and the 1925 vaudeville house on Commercial Street was running on a budget of about $340,000 with three full-time staff. It put on a couple of dozen events a year.
The person it hired, Jennifer Crockett, was a professional clarinetist who still plays with the Oregon Symphony and Opera in the Park. What the board may have valued more was the other half of her résumé. Before the Liberty, Crockett’s career was in retail, where she was sent in to turn around struggling stores.
“When I started at the Liberty, I could merge artistic life with business knowledge,” she told The Astorian this fall. “I approached it like that struggling store.”
From 24 events to 150
Ten years on, the numbers have moved a long way. The theater’s operating budget is now about $1.5 million. It hosts more than 150 performances, community events and classes a year and sees close to 30,000 patrons. Crockett leads a staff of 19 people, the equivalent of 9.5 full-time jobs, covering everything from stage technicians to the bar, a job she covered herself in the leaner early years.
About a third of operating revenue comes from ticket sales. The rest comes from donations and from seven commercial rental spaces in the building. City and state grants now make up less than 1% of income, and the theater is starting its first endowment.
The building itself takes constant work. Under Crockett, the Liberty has finished four major capital projects: a $2 million roof replacement, a new heating and ventilation system, a new sound system, and a move of the box office and concessions. More stage work is planned. When the pandemic shut the theater in March 2020, a planned six-week pause stretched to 18 months and 52 shows were canceled. Staff used the dark months to fix roof leaks, replace second-floor windows and paint.
“The building throws us curve balls,” Crockett said. “We are a 100-year-old building in a town where it rains sideways!”
A roadhouse with a school attached
Crockett is open about the fact that the Liberty is, in industry terms, a roadhouse. More than half of what happens on its stage is a rental. That mix has brought Lyle Lovett, Colin Meloy of The Decemberists and David Sedaris to Astoria for midweek dates between bigger weekend shows in Portland and Seattle. The theater’s own “Liberty Presents” series and cheap-ticket North Coast Comedy Nights fill other dates, along with community groups like the North Coast Symphonic Band.
The program she calls a cornerstone is Kids Make Theatre, a year-round youth program started two years ago with backing from an anonymous donor so it could stay affordable. It is led by Hilary Adams, who came from Broadway, and runs with 27 contract teachers and about 350 students a term. Students act, build sets, design costumes and write the scripts they perform.
Crockett has said the program is personal. She was a band kid who struggled with reading and writing and has said she would not have gone to college without the clarinet.
Small donors and big neighbors
The annual Liberty Gala, held in September, raises roughly a fifth of the operating budget. But Crockett has also put effort into small, regular giving. The Curtain Call Club costs $10 a month and comes with early ticket access. “The $5-a-month donors are as meaningful as those who have an opportunity to give more,” she said.
She serves on the board of the League of American Historic Theaters, whose early advice included a 60-point checklist she still uses. Changes that came out of it include a brighter vestibule and entryway, shorter concession lines and a rule change that lets adults carry drinks to their seats.
Locally, she meets with the North Coast Performing Arts Alliance, a group of 17 arts organizations that share grant-writing help and know-how. When a storm broke through the Ten Fifteen Theater’s roof ahead of a January show, the Liberty lent the company its upstairs McTavish Room for free. It has also helped the Q Center with a fundraiser and the Charlene Larsen Performing Arts Center with an inventory.
Board president Norma Hernandez credited Crockett with “fresh energy, innovative ideas and a fearless spirit of creativity” over the decade. Crockett herself tends to spread the credit to her staff, including office manager Nancy Schwickrath, front-of-house manager Joey Ficken, volunteer coordinator Misty Czillinger, development lead Chris Shelby and technical director Zach Bowman.
The Liberty’s restoration in the early 2000s, led by arts supporters including Steve Forrester and Cheri Folk, is widely credited with helping pull downtown Astoria back, along with the nearby Elliott Hotel and a wave of galleries and restaurants. Crockett’s view is that the job now is keeping the whole scene healthy, not just one building. “Astoria is an arts destination,” she said, “and we need to make sure all the organizations are as vital as us.”
The theater’s current season and Curtain Call Club details are at libertyastoria.org. For more on the people shaping the coast, see our recent profile of Denise Ness and Farmhouse Funk.
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