Lost our lease!
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Topic: Lost our lease!
Posted By: Guests
Subject: Lost our lease!
Date Posted: 10/30/99 at 3:34pm
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The theater we have been renting for the past 5 years or so has been sold as part of a larger real estate deal. Our board does not believe that the new owner (a community college) will 1. give us as favorable a lease as we have had, 2. their use of the bldg will cut into our rehearsal time, set construction time and affect the number of productions, 3. unilaterally decide what equipment is theirs and what is ours and 4. generally disrupt what we have accomplished as an independent not for profit organization. The three options we are considering are to return to our roving roots, try to lease a different bldg or buy/construct our own bldg. The last option is really a pie in the sky because of limited financial and personnel resources. Any comments, ideas, suggestions are welcome. By the way, the bldg we would be vacating is a 1930's era airplane hanger which is not insulated, a roof which grows leaks like my lawn has weeds, no fly space, inadequate dressing rooms, inadequate prop and costume storage, hanger doors with a zillion glass panes allowing light to interfere with matinee productions and little backstage area to move around in.
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Replies:
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 1/26/00 at 1:15pm
Update- The community college finalized the purchase several months ago and announced that plans would be developed over the winter for the renovations of the entire facility because they want to relocate by August 2000. I recently initiated discussions to 'scope' out possible negotiations and was pleasently surprised. All the principal players on the college level are committed to keeping our organization on site since we are "an assest to the community", and that there has been consideration given to adding acting and theater courses. Space will be at a premium and we will have a tremendous education job ahead of us. The college has also indicated that if renovations of the theater building are cost prohibitive(which could be the case) then they will probably demolish and construct a new building. Our board is meeting next week to decide upon a course to follow.
Though this has not been an active thread, I will post follow ups since I know people do read these posts.
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Posted By: Chris Polo
Date Posted: 3/19/00 at 5:17pm
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Haven't heard anything on this in a while -- how are you guys making out, Steve?
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 4/01/00 at 9:08am
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Things are slow. Our Board has given the direction that we have an attorney represent us, which is fine by me as president. Problem developed when the first attorney had to reschedule 3 different appointments because of her husband's illness. We have engaged a different lawyer whom I have had a chance to observe professionally. We have met and he is on the job, but the college has placed the theater building as the last priority. Verbal promise has been given to me that the college will work with us, that our equipment, costumes and props are ok and secure for now. The college has not cashed any of our rent checks since the first of the year. We're adapting our schedule for an "on the road" run if we need to. Doing a readers theater one act for the county wide Seniorama (as a freebee community involvement) in May, Arsenic and Old Lace in July (school auditorium), Victoria's Room in August (school auditorium again), two one act plays in September (the Mill Theater if we can) and Little Women (who knows where?). The college is into a major rebuilding project before they can move in, but they should be "schmoozing" us a little bit. The NFTG Board has dedicated a building fund, started off with $120 from a raffle held during our winter carnival dinner theater production (5 shows, 3 different carnivals, 2 countries) and made a non-binding resolution that our 1999 profits($1050) be added to the building fund. Building fund can only be accessed by board resolution and two signatures are needed for any withdrawal. Gotta love theater!
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 6/18/00 at 10:26pm
What a ride! The new lawyer has drafted a lease extension proposal which our board has approved. We are waiting to see how the college board reacts. Just a one year extension, same terms. Construction is horrible for us. No access to water, bathrooms, front building/lobby, and just getting to the building is an adventure! Power has been cut to the building without any notice to us. We have found out (accidentally) that none of the reconstruction money was intended for the theater building, only the front buildings they are using for classrooms and offices. The good news? It looks as though the County Treasurer will be able to sell us a county repossesed home for $1 later this summer. Though we do not have a specific building identified as yet, it would give us a place for our own office, costume and prop storage, lighting and set storage and at least a small rehearsal area.
The bad news? We are scrambling for a place to do Arsenic and Old Lace. Due to school work schedules, our original plan would have cost us about $1500 in custodial overtime. After looking at 6 or 7 other locations, we may have found another school which will cost us only about $500. We probably will have to bite the bullet on this one, but we HAVE to do this show to keep the group going. Other fights down the road look like they may be worse than this one.
Will try to keep the updates coming.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 8/11/00 at 9:13am
Arsenic and Old Lace was successful at an alternative school site which only cost us $425 in custodial fees. It was a wash because our landlord waived $450 in rent because we could not use our theater for this production. Our box was good, attendance was excellent and the set impressed a lot of people. We preconstructed it at our old theater and then transported it 15 miles the night of tech rehearsal. 90% completed in 1 hour.
We are looking at a lease extension for one year at our current theater after much negotiation. The college representative got upset when he heard we were looking for another site, but when our lawyer contacted him with the explanation the lease extension was signed to ensure we would stay another year.
The town assessor has also contacted us that we would qualify for tax exemption for property and school taxes. Now we are waiting for the county treasurer to find us a house (or whatever) that we can get for $1 so we can have an office, storage, rehearsal hall, etc. and use the theater for productions only.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 11/21/00 at 10:55pm
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It is not looking good. The pressure of doing our regular number of productions on the road is beginning to take its toll. One founding member has resigned from the board. We still do not have access to a regular site, though the college has returned all of our rent money for this year and will not charge us any rent until the building is up to code. The college says one thing, the contractor does another and I still believe that they will end up tearing the building down and start over. I will be recommending to our board that we cut our production schedule for 2001 to one dinner theater (4 nights over two different winter carnivals), two theaterical productions and one or two readers theaters presentations (we did two this year with much positive feedback). We have started an ad hoc building site committee to continue looking for a new home but things have been hectic. We are in the middle of Little Women and had the producer, then the director resign because they felt they "weren't getting the support" they should be getting. The director wanted someone at every rehearsal to write things down for him because he didn't want to stop and write anything down. Stifle the "creative" genius. yeah - right!! My wife agreed to direct, and we have a trio of producers but we lost 3 weeks to the old director who was basically incompetent and found out that he was in over his head. Oh well, next update will be after the first of the year.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 12/05/00 at 7:22am
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keep up the good fight....reading thru all of your updates i found myself gasping in agony..... my little theatre is going under not for lack of community support or due to any other outside influences but rather because of internal political strife and laziness. i feel for you. you obviously have a strong passion to keep your theatre alive and i truly wish you the best! i wish we had even three people within our current board who felt as strongly as you.... that's all it would take to keep our home base of 20 years alive. it's a shame that we have a space and it's going to hell and you don't but you have the drive and passion to keep it going....this is just a message of encouragement. we're a dying breed. and i can't figure out why. my best wishes to you in your endevours. :)
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 12/09/00 at 12:02pm
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I don't think that community theater is dying - just the opposite - there are a lot of groups springing up particularly at the smaller end. In the past month I have been to a theater with seating capacity of 50 people. Last weekend I went to a show that had a maximum audience of 30 and most of the acting took place on a 10 foot square riser!!! Our group has to move every night - we don't have a home. We do our shows in conference rooms, resturaunts, small performance venues and so on - we set seats for 30 people - some shows turn people away but many just draw 15 to 20 people. In the past year we have had 1,200 people see our productions (one show was in a 200 seat theater so it accounts for a lot of the 1200 people). I like the freedom of the very small productions. Royalties are killers though - the royalty houses need to take the seating capacity into account on the small end not just the larger venues. A couple of years ago our community of 3,000 people had one performance venue - now there are three with a fourth coming avaiable after the first of the year. All are doing well - not just theater but all performing arts.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 1/16/01 at 8:10pm
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Steve- just wondering how things have shaken out recently...my theatre group is approaching its 20th year and we are struggling as well with reinventing ourselves and trying to stay alive while we do so in the wake of learning our funding from a municipality will be cut due to budget constraints. Keep your chin up.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 2/05/01 at 4:40am
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Well, we went round and round with the community college with various promises, etc. but nothing seems to be materializing. Though I may have mentioned it elsewhere, they returned our rent checks since we have been unable to do anything with the theater due to code violations. At the January meeting our board finally came to grips and have agreed that nothing will happen with the community college. Even if they do rebuild the theater, they will want to use it for their own proposed theater arts program so we will be left out anyhow. We have established a serious ad hoc committee to look at building/rental options. Several real estate agents have been contacted and 2 or 3 places have been looked at. The best prospect (which we have not seen close up) is a retail space of about 1200-1500 square feet with 16 feet high ceilings. Though not large enough or adaptable for productions, we feel that it will give us storage space for all we own, a small office/board room so we can maintain our phone and maybe a small rehearsal/audition area. The rent for this area would be minimal - maybe $250 per month. We have our spring production (Veronica's Room) set for a school, The Housekeeper set for May at a local community center, The Mousetrap set for late August (hopefully at the school) and Nunscracker for November (who knows where). Our dinner theaters came through on a successful note this January with a total of 4 shows at 2 venues (one a restaurant, the other a Knights of Columbus hall). Averaged just over 100 per night with a gross take of between $2400 and $3000. Expenses are minimal - maybe $45-75 for props, $200 for advertising, $100 for the printer. Good money maker for us. We are starting our advertising campaign for the spring/summer programs - this normally nets us about $2000-2500. I am going to propose to my board a "super-size" membership catagory (at either $50 or $100) aimed at a limited and select number of patrons. This could bring in anywhere from $2500 to $10,000. We are continuing to add to our building fund - now over $2500 and counting. The board has agreed to raffle off a limited edition print valued at $300 over the course of the three spring/summer shows at $2 a pop to add to the building fund. If we sell a 1000 tickets (not a stretch), there's another $2000 which is dedicated to the building fund. One major problem is the carting of flats and equipement to places where we can't always do what we want to do, such as drilling supports into the floor. Connected to that is the burn out factor which people are experiencing. But we continue to offer some pretty good quality productions for our little backwater town.
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