With the shuffling of some papers, the Everett Symphony and the New Everett Theatre group have been merged into a partnership that in the short term may bring more music to downtown.
And in the long run, some hope, it could make for a future home for the symphony to rehearse and perform.
It’s much too early to tell what exactly might happen. But both arts groups want to assure the community that the symphony and New Everett Theatre will finish their program season for this year without any changes.
“It’s business as usual. We all have our different seasons going on and we don’t want anybody to feel that will change,” said the symphony’s executive director, Jody Matthews. “Down the road, we’re looking at working together to make that venue even more of a community jewel than it is right now.”
That community jewel is the historic Everett Theatre, which is managed by the New Everett Theatre group.
As it stands now, historic Everett Theatre has been a downtown venue for a variety of performing arts — theater, a women’s film festival, an Irish Cabaret. The theater has also been successful in bringing edgier shows to town, such as “Hair” and “The Vagina Monologues.”
The Everett Symphony has its office headquarters on Colby Avenue but rehearses and performs at the Everett High School’s Civic Auditorium. Of late, the symphony has been feeling the pressure of rising costs of renting the auditorium, which is owned by the school district. For instance, this year the symphony decided not to continue its children’s concert program at the auditorium because of the cost.
But both the theater and the symphony have a strong patron base. Two of their most generous patrons are Idamae Schack and her stepson, Jim Schack, who hold the mortgage on the theater building.
Over the years, Idamae and her late husband, John, gave millions of dollars to both arts groups. Recently, Idamae and Jim decided the two groups should join forces with the goal of becoming stronger and surviving longer as partners.
“I think it would be good for the whole community,” Idamae Schack said Thursday. “It’s a good rehearsal place for the symphony and … the acoustics are wonderful and it seemed like a natural thing. The symphony was hunting for what they were going to do and this will hopefully solve the problem for both of them.”
The partnership was created when Idamae and Jim Schack transferred the note they held on the historic Everett Theatre building to the symphony. The theater building is worth about $2.5 million. The note is valued at $250,000, though it “hasn’t been honored and now we put it in the symphony’s hands,” Idamae Schack said.
“I’m an 89-year-old lady,” she said. “I need to get these things in order.”
Rob Pattermann, president of the board of directors of the symphony, said both arts groups are now dedicated to fulfilling “Idamae’s dream of an arts partnership.”
“Both organizations would like to see the theater occupied every day of the year with rehearsals and performances,” Pattermann said in a written statement.
Dan Gunderson, Everett Theatre Group board president, said that forcing these two arts groups to talk together in the same room was a smart move on the Schacks’ part and probably the one way to help ensure survival and prosperity for both.
“They put us together and got our brains thinking about how to survive and we never sat in the same room with their board before and that’s why they did it,” Gunderson said.
He said one of the first goals for the 2008-09 season would be to schedule some performance dates for the symphony’s chamber orchestra to play inside historic Everett Theatre. The symphony has performed at historic Everett in the past, occasionally doing three or four shows a year, Gunderson said.
“If we put more live music in there that would put the biggest smile on my face,” Gunderson said.
As for having the symphony play there on a permanent basis, that won’t happen soon.
The stage isn’t big enough for a full orchestra and it would take a large capital campaign to raise the money to retrofit the stage to accommodate the whole symphony. Before that happens, however, the theater needs to do structural upgrades to its walls, said Lori Hughes, part of the management team for the Everett Theatre group.
Giving financial support during that capital campaign is where the community can help play its role in seeing that both arts groups survive, sources said.
“It’s time for the community to carry the torch,” Gunderson said. “If we are going to survive it’s going to take the community and now that they’ve put us together in the same building, gosh the sky’s the limit and the Schacks can realize one of their legacies.”
Reporter Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424 or goffredo@heraldnet.com.
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