Certainly one of metro Atlanta’s longest-running group theaters mentioned it could not be capable of provide a 2024 season on account of adjustments on the Cobb County-owned facility the place it phases performances.
Jonathan Liles, managing director of CenterStage North, instructed East Cobb Information that Cobb PARKS (Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs) officers knowledgeable him final month that the theater group gained’t be capable of have Sunday reveals at The Artwork Place-Mountain View in East Cobb beginning subsequent 12 months “on account of staffing.”
He mentioned The Artwork Place will now not furnish an worker for Sunday actions, together with rehearsals and stage set-up, although CenterStage North pays for an worker to help with lighting and different technical points on its present days.
This 12 months, The Artwork Place discontinued Sunday piano recital actions.
CenterStage North reveals happen on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons, usually over a two-week interval in The Artwork Place’s theater that seats between 125-210 individuals.
Ticket gross sales fund operational prices for CenterStage North, together with rental charges at The Artwork Place. The board members and actors are all volunteers, as are those that help with the performances.
“CSN is on a mission to save lots of the humanities in Cobb County,” Liles mentioned in a message responding to a request for from East Cobb Information for remark. “With out Sundays, we’re unable to help this mission.”
However Liles mentioned the primary concern isn’t operational however monetary.
“With out the Sunday income, I can not afford to remain open,” he mentioned.
“The vast majority of our income comes from subscription gross sales to reveals and donations, and we’re one of many few arts organizations that stays solvent utilizing this mannequin.”
Along with Sunday being the perfect day for volunteer availability, Liles mentioned the Sunday matinees are “the one time some patrons can see a efficiency. . . . It generates important income that funds working prices overlaying the following manufacturing.”
Liles mentioned he’s assembly with county officers subsequent week to debate the matter, and he mentioned he’s proposing “artistic scheduling with the present employees” to give you an answer.
East Cobb Information contacted the county for extra data.
Spokesman Ross Cavitt mentioned that Cobb PARKS “is coping with the truth that the Artwork Place isn’t staffed for a seven-day-a-week operation with solely two full-time and two part-time staffers. The Artwork Place is the one artwork middle open on Sundays for leases.”
He mentioned with the middle’s hours—10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Saturday—”it has been difficult to maintain them staffed,” and that the common Sunday patron turnout is round 30.
The remainder of CenterStage North’s 2023 schedule—together with a political comedy, “The Outsider,” and its annual Christmas vacation present—will go on.
However that is the time of 12 months that the theater finalizes its schedule for the following 12 months. Liles mentioned that hasn’t been taking place, and subscribers have been asking.
“When our patrons ask us why now we have not introduced our subsequent season, we needed to inform them what was taking place and that we’re not sure that we can have performances subsequent 12 months,” he mentioned.
He mentioned that CenterStage North has no different place to go if it will probably’t work one thing out to stay at The Artwork Place.
“We must go on hiatus” in 2024 on the very least, he added.
CenterStage North is an all-volunteer non-profit that has staged group theater performances in Cobb County because the Seventies, initially within the Smyrna space.
The theater group’s present identify was adopted within the Eighties and it staged reveals at The Steeple Home Arts Heart, which was positioned on Johnson Ferry Street at Paper Mill Street.
CenterStage North later started leasing house at The Artwork Place, positioned on Sandy Plains Street close to the Mountain View Regional Library and the Tim D. Lee Senior Heart, and commenced staging full seasons, with quarterly performances, plus particular reveals for the Christmas holidays.
CenterStage North was set to increase its season subscription to 5 reveals in 2020, however the COVID-19 pandemic was declared and performances stopped in 2020, and returned in restricted trend in 2021.
Liles mentioned help for the humanities has been lowering since then, and that solely CenterStage North and some youngsters’s theaters serve the East Cobb space.
He famous that in Cobb County “ball fields are open on Sundays. Why not the performing arts amenities? There are organizations clamoring to hire on Sundays if the ability is open.”
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