The Story Theatre
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 825002839
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2024–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025, Form 990-N 2023
- Location
- Chicago, IL, USA
- Phone
- 4806000140
- Rating
- 89
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Theater
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $121,431
- Expenses
- $114,201
- Assets
- $112,715
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
8 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Syamala Krishnamsetty (President)
- Ian Michael Minh (Vice President)
People named in this filing
- Syamala Krishnamsetty (President)
- Ian Michael Minh (Vice President)
- Isabelle Hong Martin (Secretary)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Story Theatre will pose questions, rather than provide answers. We develop and produce new work that is whimsical, melancholic, mythic in vision, and intimate in scale. We are run by a governing artistic ensemble, who ensures our work is actively dismantling racism and inequity, while cultivating community through activism and catharsis.
What it reported doing in 2025
Over the last four seasons, The Story Theatre has produced award-winning world-premiere plays by emerging playwrights in Chicago's theatrical milieu. Combining art and activism, The Story has also reimagined leadership structures and platformed supplemental community-centered programming.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent revenue detail to tell how this nonprofit funds its work.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Expenses are high relative to revenue and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 84
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 41
- Growth: 100
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 82%; rating input score 82
- Program expense ratio: 87.2%; rating input score 87
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 52nd percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 6%; rating input score 47; 47th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.99; rating input score 58; 58th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: Limited
- Officer compensation ratio: 18.7%; rating input score 18; 18th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: 30.7% per year; rating input score 100; 83rd percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: 61.2% per year; rating input score 100; 97th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: 6.6% per year; rating input score 100; 48th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 82% of revenue deployed · 87.2% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $100K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 8 people listed
- Consistency: 6 of 6 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Filing history: 2 filing years from 2024 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 2 filed money-flow records
- Related organizations: Filed and resolved organization relationships.
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 47/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 58/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 18/100.