Dear SCP fans and supporters,
As a follow up to
my message from April 9 and the subsequent Community Outreach Meeting on April 24, thank you to everyone who attended the meeting or sent letters to Sunnyvale Theatre management! We were all overwhelmed and humbled by the outpouring of support from our amazing community. It was a true reminder of why we put our heart and soul into making art for the betterment of our community.
The meeting was very friendly and led by both Trenton Hill, Community Services Manager, and Damon Sparacino, the new Superintendent of Community Services. A key motivation for this meeting was the closure of California Theatre Center (CTC), who performed plays for children during school hours and ran training programs for children during the summer. Their departure left a hole in the city’s schedule and they wanted to capture input from current renters of the Theatre about programming and possible enhancements.
SCP has been invited to these types of meetings many times over the decades and it was often not unusual for them to include a proposal in a loss of Theatre time or privileges by SCP. I’m pleased to say that this didn’t happen this time around—although many arrived anticipating it. It was also an opportunity for SCP to advocate for ourselves in a public setting—something we have to do in order to remind the City of how much value they’re getting from SCP for free. Actually, they’re getting us for even better than free; we pay them for the privilege of doing the community service we do.
Yes, SCP does indeed pay to use the theater for our productions—albeit at a discounted rate. That said, this wasn’t always the case. It was only a handful of years ago that the City would simply take a dollar or two from each ticket sale to cover their box office staff and other expenses. I like that model because it allowed the City to share in our success and it gave them an active “stake” in what we did. However, starting at the turn of the century, SCP went through a period when we weren’t filling houses as regularly as we had previously and the City wasn’t getting the type of returns they would have liked. So an agreement was made that SCP would instead pay fixed rental rates so the City would have predictable income. These rates get raised a few percentage points every year to keep up with inflation.
Our hosts were kind enough to allow me to speak first once the discussion section of the meeting began. I explained that we’ve continually been subject to the tension between doing the community service we do and the Theatre’s regular de-prioritizing of SCP’s time in the space in lieu of renters paying full price.
With CTC gone and the loss of the revenue that came from CTC, the City has appeared to be under pressure to rent out the Theatre as much as possible to ensure more income—or “full cost recovery” if you will. This would make perfect sense if the Theatre was a regular for-profit business. But our stance has always been that the Sunnyvale Theater is a community resource, just like the public library or city parks. Community resources like these aren’t intended to “break even.” They might be able to realize some secondary income through things like fundraisers or space rentals when absolutely no one else is slated to use a particular space, but never at the expense of their primary mission of serving the community.
However, SCP continues to be de-prioritized when it comes to retail rentals and we are frequently asked to move our rehearsals off-site, which is an enormous undertaking for musical theater. Anyone outside the theater community may not understand the many physical pieces involved in rehearsals, the need for adequate flooring that doesn’t promote injury when danced on, a piano (at least), and need for consistency in spacing (a major safety concern). Plus, we frequently use every square inch of the Theatre, running concurrent rehearsals (vocals in one room, choreography on stage, blocking in the lobby, etc.) So every rehearsal that must be taken off-site has a hugely negatively impact on our schedule and the quality of what we can do and can even lead to injury when intricate choreography is rehearsed in non-consistent locations.
So our main position—and this was iterated repeatedly by many of our supporters in attendance—is that we’d like to ensure:
- The Sunnyvale Theatre is truly recognized and run as the community resource it is, not a business.
- SCP gets prioritized use of the Theatre during rehearsal/performance periods.
- Our recent arrangement that allows us to install our sets and keep them installed (upstage of the mid-curtain) from load-in to final strike remain in place.
- The City more proactively enforce the same “upstage of the mid” policy to other groups during their tech/production periods so we aren’t adversely impacted.
- The City recognize that the outstanding technical staff at the Theatre are incredibly important for both safety and technical purposes and that these roles must always remain in place.
Other than this, meeting attendees had lots of great suggestions about Theatre usage for junior programs, school shows, and a wider array of live performance types when our shows aren’t in production—including music, comedy, dance, and more. The main theme was that the Sunnyvale Theatre is for arts and culture, not just to make money from corporate entities with deep pockets.
The City promised that they will have a survey that they’d like us to share with our entire community to help collect more input on how the Theatre should be used. We just received a link to that survey and invite everyone to
please take a moment and submit your input.
Additionally, the City has scheduled a second Community Input meeting this upcoming Thursday night on this topic—this one less focused on the regular renters (SCP and a few others) and instead on the community at large. We are very grateful to everyone who attended the last meeting and would be equally grateful for anyone who could attend this meeting as well. Here are the details:
Sunnyvale Theatre Use Community Outreach Meeting
When: Thursday, May 23, at 7 p.m.
Where: Sunnyvale Theatre (
550 E. Remington Drive, 94087)
Questions? Call 408-730-7350 or
email.
Thank you again, everyone, for your amazing support! I’m deeply grateful to be part of such an incredible community.
Steve Shapiro
President, Sunnyvale Community Players