www.sfchronicle.com: California Shakespeare Theater is closing, the company announced Thursday, Oct. 10. Many theaters locally and nationwide have shuttered since the pandemic accelerated the industry’s financial problems, but Cal Shakes is the biggest yet in the Bay Area.
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The closure of Cal Shakes is a huge hit to the Bay Area, and California as a whole. So many theatres have been struggling of late, after COVID exacerbated already rough financial realities, and it is sad every time one of them falls. So many theatre companies are closely linked to their local communities, making the closing of their doors all the more painful to the people in the area. They also often include educational programs, like the one at Cal Shakes, which must close with the companies, reducing access to arts education for kids in the region and closing pipelines for future generations of theatre makers. For the theatre community as a whole, Shakespeare festivals like Cal Shakes often facilitate the production of new works and adaptations that might otherwise have a difficult time getting produced, bringing new voices into the theatre world. The closure of them is a hit to playwrights, directors, actors, and technicians alike as it continues to shrink the opportunities for unusual productions.
For such a large and artistically successful theatre company to close feels like a very depressing sign. Obviously regional theaters across the board have been struggling since the pandemic, but you would think that community staples like Cal Shakes, which clearly means enough to people that they exceeded their emergency fundraising campaign and received a $100,000 donation from past trainee Zendaya, would be safe. Unfortunately, it seems like the support of the community and a clear purpose and passion is just not enough these days: the money continues to be a problem. Still I wonder how this could’ve come to happen so suddenly if audiences are still turning out. I know how much my local Shakespeare theatre meant to me growing up and what a big part the education programs were of my life, and I’m sad to hear that a region that got to enjoy and rely on Cal Shakes will now be lacking.
What I have to wonder after reading this article, is what keeps the theater open? Clearly, the community loves this organization. Even Zendaya donated a bunch of money. So is it audience turn out? Is it rising costs of keeping the bills paid without rising ticket prices? Are there productions too big in scale, without proper funding to support the longevity? Are fewer people coming to them for outsourced work or venue? I keep hearing about how the pandemic made a huge blow on the (Theatre) community. But I don't fully understand it is it that company got smaller because people changed careers? Is it that an audience just stays home now? but I have to imagine that those who left this career would soon be replaced by the young professionals who are eager to join the field, and I have to imagine that the audience that stays home is not the audience that ever really came to the theater. Because those who come to theater come because they know the joy of live entertainment. So what is it that is killing this industry because we keep taking loss after loss and I just don't understand why the only thing I can think of is the rising costs of simply running and organization. People need to be paid more, bills keep going up. And so if they aren't able to back, those needs financially, it would explain how even though they've exceeded fundraising goals, they are still having trouble putting on shows.
It seems that news like this of theaters closing across the country continues to come in on a regular basis. So many historic and well established theaters that are integral parts of their communities and the industry as a whole are closing their doors. This is wildly devastating for the future of the industry. So many of these theaters are important not just to their local communities that take value from them but also to the development of new plays, aspiring artists, and even the future audience members whose love for the theater is started by going to small shows at small, local theaters. Without these theaters, it will not only be much harder for new work to develop but it will also be harder for the theaters to find an audience in younger generations. I am worried that in the coming years, we will see even more of a difficulty in artists’ abilities to find jobs and in theaters’ abilities to keep their doors open.
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