The Cost of Trust: Community Theatres and the Risk of Embezzlement
by Chris Peterson
Community theatre runs on passion. Stages are built by volunteers, costumes are stitched by parents, and audiences fill the seats not for spectacle but for the joy of seeing neighbors and friends create something together. These organizations survive on heart, generosity, and trust. But sometimes, trust becomes the very thing that puts them at risk.
The Lake Wales Little Theatre is learning that lesson the hard way. Earlier this month, former board member and treasurer Leslie Grondin was arrested on fraud charges tied to her work with another nonprofit. Soon after, the theatre itself acknowledged financial irregularities during her tenure. Grondin reportedly had sole custody of the theatre’s debit cards and produced the financial reports herself — a situation with little room for oversight. For a small nonprofit that depends on ticket sales and community donations, the news was a gut punch. As one board member put it, “This has been painful, because Leslie wasn’t just a treasurer. She was a mentor, a leader, someone we all trusted.”
And yet, Lake Wales is not alone. Theatres across the country have faced similar betrayals. In Wyoming, the Cheyenne Little Theatre Players nearly collapsed when a longtime bookkeeper embezzled more than $250,000, forcing the group to take out a second mortgage just to survive. In Pennsylvania, a finance manager at the Ephrata Performing Arts Center used the theatre’s credit card and checks to pay for hotels and salon services, a theft that totaled less than $3,000 but left behind a larger scar of mistrust. Even large organizations have been shaken — the Florida Chapter of the Educational Theatre Association saw nearly $600,000 misappropriated over a decade, spent on everything from groceries to Disney tickets.
The numbers vary, but the pattern is the same. A trusted insider with too much control. A board of volunteers more focused on productions than paperwork. Oversight gaps that leave an organization exposed. Most community theatres aren’t staffed with accountants or auditors; they’re run by people who love the arts and give their time freely. That makes it tempting to hand over the finances to one reliable person and assume all will be well. Too often, that assumption proves costly.
What makes these situations so heartbreaking is that they usually don’t begin with malice. In many cases, the individuals charged admit they were struggling personally — “tight on money,” as Grondin herself reportedly confessed. A bill gets paid from the wrong account, then another, and suddenly a pattern of dishonesty sets in. The line between borrowing and stealing blurs. By the time it comes to light, years of trust have been squandered, and the community is left to pick up the pieces.
The damage is about more than money. Stolen funds mean fewer sets built, fewer scholarships offered, fewer opportunities for young people to take the stage. Donors and sponsors lose confidence, and audiences may think twice about supporting a season. In some cases, the very survival of the theatre hangs in the balance. And unlike a professional company in a large city, community theatres don’t have deep reserves to cushion the blow. A single betrayal can derail an entire season or shutter a program that took decades to build.
But if theatre is built on collaboration, then so too should be its financial stewardship. No one person should ever have unchecked access to the books. Boards must require multiple signatures on checks and withdrawals, conduct regular audits — even modest internal ones — and update bylaws to make accountability clear. Every board member, not just the treasurer, should have a basic understanding of where the money is going and why.
The Lake Wales Little Theatre has pledged to review its bylaws and undergo an independent audit, painful steps that are nonetheless necessary. Their experience should serve as a cautionary tale for other theatres before the damage is done. Trust, once broken, takes far longer to rebuild than it does to lose.
Community theatre at its best is a miracle: people with day jobs coming together at night to create something that stirs laughter, tears, and applause. It deserves every ounce of support we can give it. But that support must be matched with care behind the scenes. Protecting the books is not about suspicion — it’s about honoring the work and ensuring that the stage lights can stay on for the next cast, the next story, the next audience waiting to be moved.
The curtain will rise again in Lake Wales, as it has in Cheyenne, in Ephrata, and elsewhere. But these stories should remind us that while passion fuels the stage, prudence must protect it. For art to flourish, the finances behind it must be guarded just as carefully as the stories told under the lights.