Erica Sutherlin, current Artistic Executive Director of St. Pete’s acclaimed Studio@620, assumed the reins after being hand-picked by retiring founder and visionary Bob Devin Jones in 2023. Photo: Joey Clay Professional
Erica Sutherlin, current Artistic Executive Director of St. Pete’s acclaimed Studio@620, assumed the reins after being hand-picked by retiring founder and visionary Bob Devin Jones in 2023. But the transition hasn’t been without challenges – and it’s Sutherlin’s smart turnaround strategies that are keeping the doors open during a difficult time for live performance.
During her six-month shadowing process beginning in January 2024, she quickly realized there were “no policies or procedures” – and no strategic plan. “There was no handing over the book – ‘this is how this studio operates.’ There was none of that. There were no financial structures in place.”
It was about to get worse. The organization had just purchased the building at 620 1st Avenue South, which it had rented since 2008 — and while she was in the shadowing process, she got a call saying that there was “no more money” in the coffers.
The next shock was learning that no one was coming with the organization. She knew that the board had decided not to bring back the director of marketing — but she didn’t know that the managing director, with whom she had built a partnership during her six-month shadowing period, was also resigning.
“I walked into a building on my first day of work, and I was the only one, and that was it.” Sutherlin said she had “$5,500 [in the organization’s bank account] with a mortgage that was $4,100 due.”
Sutherlin was honest with the board. “I had to have that conversation, ‘you may have hired me to make the hard decision, because maybe I’m here to close the doors’.” She agreed to give it a year, but she also told them, “I’m not going to do it by myself. It has to be a team effort,” – and if they couldn’t hold up their end, she assured them, “I’m out — because I can’t do this all by myself.”
Gaining a six-month grant for the mortgage allowed her “a little breathing room.”
As the only one on payroll at the time, Sutherlin was dealing with the physical demands of maintaining the place as well as the administrative end, and was grateful when Charlotte Quandt, a well-respected and beloved local arts stage manager, volunteered to help. (Quandt has since been under contract as the resident stage manager.)
Sutherlin started renting the Studio out to a church on Sunday — and considered raising the rent on the second-floor space (”Our prices hadn’t been increased in probably ten years!”). Sutherlin chose to split the area into two separate spaces. She eventually procured a new renter who took both spaces, bringing in additional much-needed finances.
The Studio wasn’t out of the woods. With a monthly budget of around $14,000 to run the space, and no robust grant department, there were no immediate grants or income. Since programming had slowed due to the storms of 2024, when Sutherlin started programming again, she strategically eliminated events that couldn’t contribute to her new vision for the Studio, while keeping the ones that had hefty community support and were a boon rather than a drag on resources.
Erica Sutherlin, far left, Cadillac Crew Cast, and Powerstories executive director Clareann Despain, far right. Image courtesy of Powerstories Theatre.
Her next step was to devise a calendar that was built on partnerships and shared expenses, and she worked with Tampa’s Powerstories Theatre to split the costs of a technical director (TD) and also to co-produce the recent hit play Cadillac Crew.
Today, two organizations are sharing the TD and have learned how to plan their seasons to avoid scheduling conflicts. Sutherlin calls it a “blueprint” for the way arts organizations can move forward together to weather the financial realities of the day.
Noting that, in a world where everything is more expensive, “people are not necessarily spending money the way they used to,” which, for Sutherlin, means arts organizations need to be highly strategic and continue to find ways to work together.
“I think the landscape is speaking to lifting together. We are experiencing obstacles that have intensified, and they’re more rapid. I don’t think that we can problem-solve this by ourselves – [so] how do we save each other? I think the idea of cost sharing is very important.”
Sutherlin also stressed that the misunderstanding about how nonprofits function is harmful. “People like to think that when they hear nonprofit, that nonprofits don’t create a profit. Not true at all. A nonprofit should create a profit. It’s just what happens to the profit: it does not go into the pockets of the shareholders – it goes back into the organization.”
Acknowledging the positives of her tenure so far, Sutherlin was proud that the Studio employed over 500 artists in 2025. Looking to the future, she is also excited about the new “Arts at Work program” giving young tech and sound crew — costumers, sound engineers, set designers – their first paid experiences through the Studio’s productions.
For more information on the Studio@620, and how you can contribute to its future, visit https://thestudioat620.org.
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