Troupe Denies Lack of Support : Funding: GroveShakespeare says donations are down but ticket sales are up. It says director Hammerman’s resignation is not tied to foundation’s pullout.

GroveShakespeare board president David Krebs denied Monday that the troupe lacks community support--an assertion that officials of the Leo Freedman Foundation made last week when they failed to renew their own financial support of the struggling theater company.

Krebs said tickets sales have been up this year. But he also acknowledged that donations from individuals and corporations are down.

“I wouldn’t say we have a lack of community support,” he said. “I just think a lot of people are watching their dollars in these economic times.” He would not say how much contributions have declined.

Krebs also flatly denied that the surprise resignation last week of Barbara G. Hammerman, GroveShakespeare’s managing director and executive vice president, was in any way connected to the Freedman decision.

Hammerman’s decision to resign “was actually made prior” to the Freedman announcement, Krebs said. Hammerman, who has been unavailable for comment, told supporters she was leaving for personal and professional reasons.

Announcing more than $100,000 in grants to other local arts groups on Friday, Sharon Jaquith of the Freedman foundation said she and her fellow foundation trustees “would like to see a commitment by the community the GroveShakespeare serves. . . . Then we would consider a future financial investment” in the troupe. She declined to elaborate on the statement Monday.

Last year, the foundation gave GroveShakespeare a sorely needed grant of $250,000, about a third of the troupe’s total budget. The largest gift in the troupe’s history, it came at an especially critical juncture: GroveShakespeare had been rocked by the forced departure, reportedly engineered by Hammerman, of founding artistic director Thomas A. Bradac, and at the same time had reached the end of a three-year phase-out of city funding.

Krebs said Monday that the lack of a foundation grant this year should not necessarily put the troupe into dire straits.

“But it certainly has an impact,” he said. “As with all arts organizations, we have our challenges, financially, and we have to continue to be creative (in soliciting contributions from) corporations and individuals and the cities to keep good classical theater going.”