Don't let Richard Bento near your community theatre
Richard Bento
If you’re the leader of a community theatre and you care about its financial survival, do not let Richard Bento near it.
After an explosive report by Boston’s NPR radio station, Bento’s trail of taking advantage of community theatres, and those who work within them, has finally been exposed.
WBUR’s Quincy Waters published an outstanding article on Aug 14th which detailed just how many times Bento has schemed various community theatres in New England.
Bento’s illegal activities include performing shows without acquiring rights, charging upwards of $150 for kids to participate in shows without showing where the money went, and embezzling $15,000 from the theater company in Rhode Island. According to the article,
In 2012, Bento became the artistic director of the Bristol Theatre Company in Rhode Island. Marie Knapman, who runs the theater, says two years later, she found out Bento siphoned nearly $15,000 from the theater company.
"We ended up being able to get pictures from the drive-through at the banks that showed him cashing the checks," Knapman remembered. "He was arrested and charges were brought against him. And ultimately he was found guilty and ordered to pay restitution to us."
Rhode Island Superior Court records show Bento has paid about half of what he owes. He stopped paying last year, Knapman said, and now there's an open warrant for his arrest.
Jennifer Kuzmeskas, a former OnStage Blog writer, worked with Bento when she was treasurer of South Shore Theatre Works, where he was most recently employed. She told WBUR,
"I spent many hours on the phone with the bank, trying to find out where that money went — if it had been deposited in the wrong account or what had happened," Kuzmeskas said. "So, when I had a lot of questions about that, he promptly removed me as treasurer.”
In response to the allegations, Bento deactivated his Facebook account and has ignored emails and texts. Some have said it wouldn’t be surprising if he picked up and tried his scheme again in another state.
Let me be clear, people like Richard Bento are the very worst that work in community theatres. These individuals who work their way into unsuspecting theatre groups only to take advantage of them, steal from them and put them in precarious situations. We all know what can happen to theatres that don’t pay licensing for shows.
Yet, folks like Richard Bento are able to succeed due to lack of information being widely published or lack of oversight within a theatre group. The former has now been taken care of but I worry about the latter. After his scheme at South Shore was uncovered, the entire Board of Directors resigned.
In my time working in community theatre, I’ve seen groups where oversight and accountability are priorities and I’ve seen groups where it is not. It is so important for theatres to have structures in place to prevent this from happening. I’m not necessarily saying that the theatres Bento victimized didn’t, but there were obvious gaps where he was able to slip between.
Community theatres also need to communicate with one another. These communities are smaller than you would imagine, so when it’s found out that people like Bento are working for other theatres, leadership should contact each other to warn them.
We’ll definitely be following up on this and publishing as much information as we can. I don’t want Richard Bento ever to have the opportunity to work in theatre again.
After his latest scheme was uncovered, he emailed parents involved in the South Shore show to apologize and say that it was never his intention to hurt anyone.
Given his pattern of cheating various theatres, I don’t believe that for a second and neither should you.