Without $75,000, Everett Theatre faces closure

Published 11:36 pm Monday, May 12, 2008

EVERETT — The Everett Theatre is in the midst of a campaign to raise $75,000. That’s money the theater needs to get it through the summer. But the big-picture reality is that without the money, the 107-year-old theater will close.

“To not raise the money means a potential in a layoff of the staff and to close our doors until funds can be found,” wrote programming and artistic director Victoria Walker in a press release.

A similar dire message can be read on the theater’s Web site, which declares, with exclamation points, that without significant help from the community, the theater will disappear:

“Only you can make a difference. We need to raise $75,000 to continue to operate this historic theater. Today it’s a theater. Tomorrow??? A parking lot or condos, the choice is yours!!!”

The need for donations is immediate. There is no cut-off date to donate.

The looming possibility of closure comes on the heels of the theater’s big announcement that the Everett Symphony Orchestra will call the theater home beginning in the fall as the symphony works its concerts into the theater calendar. The plan is that the symphony will play all its concerts at Everett Theatre by the 2009-10 season.

That won’t happen, however, if the theater can’t stay in business.

Dan Gunderson, the theater’s board president, believes that with the addition of the Everett Symphony, Everett Theatre has reached a point where it can offer the kind of diversity the community can get really excited about: a mix of live music — classical and modern — live theater and comedy, films, and children’s programs.

But these shows can’t happen with the theater’s current budget.

“We’re in a tough spot right now and it’s hard to take the next step without any money,” Gunderson said.

Costly building

The Everett Theatre, also known as Historic Everett Theatre or New Everett Theatre, has been a mainstay survivor in the 2900 block of Colby Avenue in downtown Everett since 1901. The stylish building survived a 1923 fire, various transformations, and ebbs and flows in its success.

Today, the 834-seat theater is enjoying much success, boasting a calendar of events that is double what it was four years ago. Those events are a vital outlet for community theater groups. The theater also serves as a much-needed venue for children’s workshops and shows such as the Irish Cabaret and the Women’s Film Festival.

The theater provides support to the community in other ways, too. It houses election forums and jazz camps and gives to the battered women’s shelter, among other organizations.

But the costs of running a 107-year-old building can be daunting.

Here’s what the nonprofit theater is facing:

More than $100,000 has been spent in the last two years on repairs and maintenance, including asbestos abatement, re-routing heating vents and redoing what was a dangerous counterweight system that controls the lights and sets.

The building is not energy-efficient, with a yearly light bill of $12,000 and another $11,000 spent annually on natural gas.

Everett Theatre receives no city, state or federal dollars to maintain the building. The theater can’t get historic-status money because the building has not been remodeled with historic accuracy.

The theater, which is not a public facility, is run by a part-time paid staff; 95 percent of the staff is made up of volunteers.

“I kind of laugh because on paper it’s kind of amazing that we’re even still going,” Gunderson said.

“It would be a shame if this place went away,” Gunderson continued. “Having said that, I don’t think the building … someone else would come in and save it. If this organization, this group of people, this board, if we had to exit, I don’t think that means this building is going to go away.”

The theater’s future

Understandably, Gunderson doesn’t like to think about that. And he truly believes there are too many reasons the theater is going to survive, including the addition of the Everett Symphony and the theater’s continued cultural and community offerings.

Everett Theatre’s 2008-09 season is shaping up to include the Stephen Sondheim musical “Sweeney Todd” and performances by the Seattle Shakespeare Theatre company, the Comedy Underground and the Missoula Theatre Company.

The theater is also hoping to start a live music series. Ed Beeson, a new theater board member, is helping get that series going.

Beeson is past owner of Seattle’s Backstage and a promoter for Seattle’s Summer Nights at the Pier and has produced shows for the past 25 years.

Beeson said the Everett Theatre is unique in that there’s no other theater its size for the local marketplace. Beeson believes there are plenty of artists who want to play at an 800-seat venue.

Some of the performers Beeson tosses out as possibilities are Richard Thompson, Nick Lowe and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

“But the list goes on,” Beeson said. “There can be easily 10 to 20 shows booked a year just with my pre-established relations with agents and artists.”

For Gunderson and others whose jobs depend on the Everett Theatre’s continued survival, the hope is that those shows do happen. But first, the donations must come in and, second, the community must continue its support and patronage.

“There’s that saying that goes, ‘if you build it, they will come,’” Gunderson said, “but here at Everett Theatre we need them to come so we can build it.”

Reporter Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424 or goffredo@heraldnet.com.