Posted on January 30, 2012

Signature Theatre Receives $25 Million From Pershing Square Foundation

The Pershing Square Foundation has announced a $25 million gift to Signature Theatre in New York City to expand a program that guarantees affordable tickets to the company's productions.

The gift — the single largest by the foundation to an arts institution to date — will be used to dedicate the company's new Frank Gehry-designed home, which will be renamed the Pershing Square Signature Center, and to fund the company's Signature Ticket Initiative, which will guarantee that affordable tickets are made available for every Signature production over the next twenty years. Launched in 2005, the program also receives support from the Ford Foundation, Margot Adams, Time Warner Inc., the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

"Signature has made a remarkable contribution to the cultural life of New York," said Pershing Square Capital Management CEO Bill Ackman. "With the opening of their new home, their impact on the city will increase significantly. We are especially pleased to support their groundbreaking program to provide access to great theatre, which we see as an investment in New York and the theatre community that will pay dividends for generations to come."