The review, which is scheduled to be completed by early May, would also assess whether a new management model should be installed at the theatre, trust chairman Rob Aitken said this week.
"We are beginning an internal review to give us the basis upon which the Fortune will meet the challenges of the new decade and continue to bring the best in live theatre to the people of Otago and Southland," Dr Aitken said.
"Two open meetings with the community have taken place and these are being followed by a series of focus groups that will pool the knowledge, share the aspirations and develop the relationships that will take the theatre forward."
Professional theatres usually have a general manager in charge of administration and an artistic director who manages the product and creative overview of the company.
However, the Fortune has not had an artistic director since Martin Howells resigned in 2002.
Long-serving theatre manager Janice Marthens resigned in December and was replaced by interim manager Karen Elliot.
The Fortune would not advertise for a new manager until the the review was completed, Dr Aitken said.
"We will be exploring all possible combinations and will be guided heavily by the review.
"The idea is to look at our internal processes and procedures and to look at the relationship between the staff and the board and then to look at the theatre and its relationships to stakeholders."
The premiere of Roger Hall's latest play, Four Flat Whites in Italy, in November and December had saved the theatre's financial year.
"While the 2009 season had mixed attendance, two gems stood out: Emma and Four Flat Whites in Italy.
"Together, they have put the theatre back on the road to financial and critical success," he said.
"Flat Whites pretty much moved us out of a big hole into a more manageable one.
"We're certainly starting 2010 better than we started 2008 and 2009.
"While the theatre still has some way to go, this combination of reworking literary classics and celebrating New Zealand's vernacular wit and humour will continue this year, with Roger Hall's Conjugal Rites and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights."
The theatre's collaboration with Interact to develop a theatre school for children and adults had also strengthened its foundations, Dr Aitken said.
"We are very pleased with the relationship with Interact and the drama classes, which are enjoying full rolls to start term one.
Col-laboration with Interact is an important part of our community goals and enriches and inspires children through the magic of theatre."
The Fortune was established in 1973 to bring professional theatre to Otago and Southland and is the southernmost professional theatre company in the world.
In 2000, financial difficulties threatened it with closure and forced the sale of the building - the R.A. Lawson-designed, former-Trinity Wesleyan Church - to the Dunedin City Council.
The council now leases the building back to the Fortune Theatre Trust.
The Roger Hall play Conjugal Rites opened at the Fortune last night.
