Although I made an appeal, and I thought a well-reasoned and sensible appeal, in an earlier edition, for a building for use as a theater in Lake County, I have not seen any action on this rather urgent situation. I hoped that a person owning a piece of real estate with a building on it large enough to be adapted for theatrical use would volunteer the necessary help. There are several in Lake County, and I was hoping to not need to specify these buildings, nor their owners. And indeed I am holding back still on mentioning these owners who, while having buildings serving no purpose, in some case for years now, still see no reason to support the Lake County community needs.
To sum up the arguments for why such a generous gesture is badly needed, let me say:
There are four theaters in Lake County that have some of the facilities to produce profitable community theater productions. They are the Soper-Reese Community Theatre, the Mac theater on the grounds of Clear Lake High School, the theater in the Lower Lake Schoolhouse Museum, and the Little Theater in the Lakeport Fairgrounds. All of these theaters have been used to present theatrical productions.
To take them in reverse order, the Little Theater in the Fairgrounds has several drawbacks. The rent has gone up drastically in the past few years. Loud auto racing takes place quite near by, limiting the dates when theater can be done there. The building is deteriorating, the stage needs considerable work to restore, among other things, the stage curtains, and there is no stage lighting system. All the seats are on a flat floor, meaning that only the people in the front row have good seats. In its favor, the administration of the fairgrounds has always treated the acting companies with consideration and respect, for instance trusting them with keys to the place, and counting on them to clean up behind themselves. Some quite good productions have been presented there, including Fiddler on the Roof. Unfortunately, the cost of rental is so high that rehearsal and set building have to be done elsewhere.
The Lower Lake Museum Theater has seen some excellent productions, going back for years, but it is a very small house up a steep staircase. It too does not have theater lights, and so also needs the portable lights of the theater company brought in and set up, always leaving wires and ugly stanchions cluttering up the auditorium. The seats are on a flat floor as at the Little Theater. There is an elevator, but it is only for the disabled and won’t carry sets and so on, so everything has to be carried up the stairs. The small size encourages plays that have a small audience, and that has been handled well. Although small, they fill the place. The actors love to work there because they feel welcome, but not enough money can be made there to make a difference to the companies.
The Mac theater has a very fine stage, but the raked seating that was in the original building plan has not been possible, so much of the seating does not have a good view of the stage. There is enough parking, but the auditorium is also used for sport competition and practice, mostly basketball, so during the school year it is not often available, and when it is, it is pricey. When originally constructed, it had a very fine stage lighting system, but that has to a great extent deteriorated. The high school does do some nice work there, but for a commercial company it is not often appropriate.
The Soper-Reese Community Theatre, or as I think it should be called the Soper-Reese Concert Hall, has a much more well-thought-out building. It has raked seating, the only place in Lake County that does, and no obstructing pillars. The seats are comfortable and the acoustics are very good. It has a well-designed lighting system, but given that it is used mostly for concerts, the color zones and other stage conventions that make drama possible have been allowed to fade away. There is not much parking there, given the size of audience that can be fitted in. The cost to use the building is quite high. The biggest problem with the S-R is that the administration of the Theatre has never been able to make any theater company feel welcome. It is mandatory that a S-R agent is on hand at all times to make sure that no actor misbehaves. The S-R insists that its own people handle lights and sound, even though the companies have very experienced people available, including a number who have been checked out and used the facilities in the past. The administration of the S-R has often been insulting to actors in word and deed. No actor wants to work there anymore, although when the place opened every actor dreamed of working there.
These are the reasons that the existing venues range from unappealing to unusable. Until a space opens up for the theater companies to turn into a functioning theater, a level of professionalism will not be possible. Although Lake has an amazing amount of first-quality talent, and a lot of get-up-and-go, and although they have been saving money for their own theater for years now, it will be a long time until they can afford to buy or build what they need. They need an angel who will either supply them with a building that they can change into a theater, or a million or two that they can use to buy it with.
I am not without criticism for the Lake County Theater Company. They have certain policies that make it harder for them to achieve the kind of success they deserve, the most egregious of which is their insistence that every member of their Board of Directors must be involved in every production that they put on. This guarantees that every Board member is an actor. Arts non-profits generally succeed best when half of the Board is composed of people with economic and organizational expertise, with no distractions from building the exchequer, finding grants, finding angels and making investments. For this reason I will be advancing the idea that an organization dedicated to supporting theater in Lake County be formed, composed of people who know what theater needs and know how to get it.
