Atlanta Shakespeare Company's Jeff Watkins pleading for donations on the non-profit's website.

Atlanta Shakespeare Company’s artistic director Jeff Watkins has sent out a victorious e-mail to the downtown theatre’s subscribers and donors with the headline: “We Did It!”

As Buzz readers will recall, the financially strapped non-profit has sent out a series of SOS missives to supporters this year after seeing it’s revenues plunge more than $200,000 during the current economic crisis.

The Bard-based theater company has had to reach out to patrons in order to keep the company open and to pay down mounting bills. The latest whopper: a $29,000 compensation insurance bill.

In an email to supporters, Watkins disclosed this week: “I can hardly believe it. In just the last two hours, more than $4,000 has come in to put us over the goal line! I know it’s to pay the un-sexiest bill in my whole world but the fact is, that this is money for art . . . and that’s a rare commodity in these troubled times. So thank you, thank you!”

Through it all, Watkins has attempted to maintain a sense of humor in these uncertain times. On the theatre company’s donations page, he posted a photo of himself digging into a can of Spam with a link titled: “Click here to see Jeff doing something he really doesn’t want to do…”