Elevator Repair Service Theater Inc

What it reported doing in 2024

Throughout the 2025 fiscal year, Elevator Repair Service Theater (ERS) fulfilled its mission of creating original works with an ongoing ensemble that explore and challenge the fundamentals of live performance. In the past 12 months, ERS continued development of our new work, Ulysses, internationally performed Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge, revived our most famous work, Gatz, and engaged in additional ancillary activities to further bolster our cultural and educational partnerships and increase audience engagement.In November of 2024, ERS remounted a sold-out 19-performance run of Gatz, our 8-hour-long word-for-word enactment of The Great Gatsby, at The Public Theater in New York City. Two decades after its original NYC premiere, Gatz still drew interest and acclaim, and we have received renewed touring interest in the production following this engagement. Ulysses is ERSs take on James Joyce's iconic modernist novel. ERS has a successful history of reinvigorating and bringing new perspectives to pieces of classic literature, and our goal in presenting Ulysses is to transform the notoriously inaccessible text into a performance piece that is both accessible and compelling to a broader audience. Following a world premiere at Bards SummerScape festival in June/July 2024 that received a New York Times Critics Pick, ERS continued to develop the work with engagements at FringeArts in Philadelphia, PA, in September 2024, UMS (University of Michigan) in Ann Arbor, MI, in October 2024, and UCLA in Los Angeles, CA, in April 2025. Altogether, ERS had the opportunity to perform Ulysses for more than 2,500 audience members in FY25. Later in April 2025, ERSs original production Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge toured to the FIND Festival in Berlin, Germany, for four performances. BBAC is a verbatim depiction of a debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley, Jr. at Cambridge University. The piece is a new staging of the text of the 1965 debate whose subject - "The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro" is as relevant today as it was almost 60 years ago.ERS has also recently participated in ancillary activities in collaboration with other artistic and cultural organizations. In March 2025, ERS collaborated with the James Joyce Society on a free public reading of Exiles, the only play written by James Joyce. Additionally, in December 2024, ERS Artistic Director John Collins and longtime ERS company member Scott Shepherd visited students at The New School to discuss ERS and the development of Ulysses. These ancillary activities allow us to reach broader audiences and interact with groups that may not traditionally attend live theater.

Financial Efficiency

• Mission deployment rate: 73.8%; rating input score 74
• Program expense ratio: 77.4%; rating input score 77
• Fundraising efficiency: $3.51 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 11; 11th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

• Consistency checks: 94.4%; rating input score 94; 26th percentile among comparable filings
• Pay-setting controls: Limited
• Foreign activity oversight: Limited
• Grant itemization coverage: Limited
• Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
• Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

• Independent voting board: 94.4%; rating input score 94; 25th percentile among comparable filings
• Governance controls: 8 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 100
  • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
  • Whistleblower policy: Pass
  • Document-retention policy: Pass
  • CEO compensation review process: Pass
  • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
  • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
  • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
  • Audit committee oversight: Pass
  • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

• Operating margin: 5.2%; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings
• Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.87; rating input score 38; 38th percentile among comparable filings
• Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.05; rating input score 51; 51st percentile among comparable filings
• Officer compensation ratio: 10.6%; rating input score 35; 35th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

• Program expense growth: -0.1% per year; rating input score 0; 17th percentile among comparable filings
• Revenue growth: 0.3% per year; rating input score 100; 16th percentile among comparable filings
• Asset growth: 5.8% per year; rating input score 100; 42nd percentile among comparable filings