After a fiscal year in which the Guthrie Theater reported a record $3.8 million shortfall on a $32 million budget, Minnesota’s flagship performing arts company reports a dramatic turnaround.

The theater still posts a shortfall, but it is a relatively tiny $85,578 on a $29.6 million budget for fiscal year 2024, which ended Aug. 31, 2024. The Guthrie had expected to have a $1 million gap but its plans, including finding efficiencies in programming and staff as well as cost-cutting, have worked better than initially anticipated.

The Guthrie trimmed $900,000 from its programming budget, which accounts for 79% of its annual expenses — going from $24.3 million to $23.4 million. It also cut $822,792 in administrative costs, which fell from $5.34 million to $4.52 million.

“While this progress is encouraging, we know there is still work to do … to return to … a balanced budget,” board chair Jennifer Reedstrom Bishop and artistic director Joseph Haj said in a joint statement.

The Guthrie drew 11.6% of its budget from restricted and unrestricted net assets, which includes its endowment. Those assets total $144 million, up from $142 million the previous year.

Will Roland, left, and China Brickey headlined the Guthrie Theater’s B-movie sendup “Little Shop of Horrors” last summer. (Dan Norman)

The theater saw 307,986 patrons come in from across the state and country. Many came to see its marathon production of Shakespeare’s History Plays.

Other draws included the world premiere of Ty Defoe’s and Larissa Fasthorse’s “For the People,” a comedy that was the Guthrie’s first “mainstage production written by, for and about Native people,” Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning one-act “Art” and the theater’s big summer musical “Little Shop of Horrors.”