Theater Center to leave CAC

By Barb Shepherd
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Nov 15, 2009 - 10:47:59pm

Sands Theater Center has notified the Cultural Arts Center that it plans to move out of the building.

The Cultural Arts Center (CAC) at 600 N. Woodland Blvd. houses two nonprofit arts organizations: The Museum of Florida Art, and Sands Theater Center Inc.

The museum and theater split the operating costs of the building, which they pay in the form of monthly rent to the CAC, which is also a nonprofit organization.

Sands Theater Center can no longer afford its half, according to Steve Blais, interim executive director of the theater.

The theater first notified the CAC board in September that it was thinking of moving out, Blais said. The decision was ratified in October by a unanimous vote of the 21-member Sands Theater board of directors, and the CAC was sent a formal notice Nov. 1.

“It’s not our intent to abandon them. We just don’t have the financial choice,” Blais said.

The theater won’t move out before 2010, and probably not before the end of April. The plan is to lease stage space somewhere — possibly even back at the CAC — while locating the box office and administrative operations elsewhere.

“We need to look into Stover; we need to look at other theaters in the area,” Blais said.

A committee is planning details of the move.

Blais said Sands Theater Center usually just breaks even year to year. This year, the CAC raised the theater’s monthly rent from $5,250 to $6,000, effective next month.

It was the first rent increase in two or three years, and Blais said it was fair.

“That’s probably not really enough,” he said.

But the rent of $72,000 a year, plus an electric bill of about $3,000 a month, is too much for the theater company.

“We can’t afford to put over $100,000 [a year] into two overhead items,” Blais said. “Just, physically, you can’t support a community theater when you have $100,000 in expenses before you build the first set or pay the first director.”

Sands Theater Center also owns and operates the restored Athens Theatre in Downtown DeLand. Although Sands Theater has always planned to stage one or two plays there a year, Blais said, it will not move its theater operation to the Athens because that would not leave stage time for the musical performances, movies and other special programming the Athens was restored to provide.

Blais said he knows people may blame the Athens, which opened in January, for cash-strapping Sands Theater, but that’s not really the case.

While the Athens has had a rocky first year and is, at best, breaking even, Blais said Sands Theater would have decided to exit the CAC with or without the Athens.

“The Athens books have paid Sands bills; Sands books have paid Athens bills,” Blais said.

The difficulty of meeting the expenses of the CAC building began long before the Athens opened, he said.

Blais stepped in this summer as a volunteer to manage Sands Theater Center and the Athens, after the former director, Jeff Ault, resigned.

“If I came in there at the same point, and they didn’t have the Athens, I’d be making the same recommendation,” Blais said.

Jennifer Coolidge, executive director of The Museum of Florida Art and a board member of the CAC, said the museum learned of the Sands Theater decision about two weeks ago, and has not had time to develop any specific plans in reaction to it.

“This will be a challenge,” Coolidge said. “The museum is committed to working in partnership with the CAC on this challenge, and to engage the community.”

Coolidge said the museum hopes to maintain its alliance with Sands Theater.

“Both organizations have benefited from shared resources under one roof,” she said. “We look forward to continued association with the Sands.”

She said the CAC board has discussed reaching out to the original founders of the CAC “to ask for their advice and assistance in order to maintain this arts facility for the community.”

— barbshepherd@beacononlinenews.com

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