Por David Schwab | Reportero SDUN

Birch North Park Theatre owner Lyric Opera San Diego is sending up a flare.

“We are in a cash crisis,” said Leon Natker, the opera’s general ?director, in an urgent letter sent out to the greater community. “If ?we do not reach the goal of $200,000 in the next 90 days … Lyric will ?be unable to continue: Its season is in danger of fading away, ?despite all our successes, and all the effort of the past five years.”

Underscoring that “we’re not closing tomorrow,” Natker characterized ?the theater’s financial predicament as real, its $200,000 request for ?donations as necessary and the 90-day timeline to accomplish that ?task as realistic.

“It’s not like we’re looking for $32 million by January,” he noted. ?“But we seriously need $200,000 to bring back my ticket sales to keep ?the operation going.”

Pointing out that the price of a theater ticket covers less than half—even less when the ticket is heavily discounted—of the cost of ?producing a show, Natker said donations are needed to make up the difference of the price of a ?ticket that brings “the joy of live music theater with a full chorus, ?full orchestra, terrific young artists and a staff to administer the ?program and maintain our historic home.” Only with the community’s help can the theater make a firm financial ?base a reality.

Said Natker: “We cannot be the economic engine for ?the rebirth of North Park and remain unfunded: That is not possible ?today and it is not possible in the future.”

Natker said the theater is directly appealing to the community for ?help through mailings and phone calls. That call for aid was answered ?initially in the first few days with $40,000 from about 35 ?individuals, the largest donation totaling $5,000. ?Another problem with management of Birch North Park Theatre, said Natker, ?is that Lyric Opera only uses the facility part-time.

“Lyric’s doors can’t ?remain open if we keep paying for 80 percent of a facility that we’re ?only using 30 percent of the time,” he said, adding the opera also ?has been subsidizing not-for-profits that have been using the facility the past few years.

“We have to develop donors to the North Park Theatre,” ?he said. “Subsidizing not-for-profits, cutting their rent—it just ?catches up to you eventually.”

Natker noted another difficulty is that North Park is very much a regional ?theater with only 5 or 6 percent of its patrons coming from nearby.

“By saving us, you save a valuable temple of art and beauty for all ?of San Diego,” he concluded in his community letter. The theater manager blamed the ongoing economic recession, and an ?unforeseen turn of events with theater ownership, for why the ?institution is now between a rock and a hard place.

“We restored the building, we opened in 2005 and at that time we were ?the managing tenant, never intending to own the building or even have ?the option to own it until 2010,” he said, adding Lyric Opera’s hand ?was forced when the developer who owned the building “opted out of ?the deal.”

“We were in the position to buy it, or buy it and sell it to someone ?who might want to keep it as a theater,” said Natker, describing the ?first two years after Lyric purchased the theater as “just fine, ?everything was going along for us. We were just at the point to start ?really building up some kind of endowment so we had some kind of a ?cash cushion.”

Then, in 2008, the bottom fell out.

“Donations fell away,” said ?Natker. “In 2008-09, the year of the (economic) crash, we opened our ?season the same week Lehman Brothers closed. We have simply just been struggling to build it back ever since with ticket sales and donations down in San Diego and the rest of the country.”

What would be the consequence to North Park should Lyric fail in its fundraising bid to save the theater?

“The end of Lyric would drag down several not-for-profits; the vast ?majority of businesses here came along since 2005, and I would say that ?we (theater) were the impetus for the renaissance,” he said.

Liz Studebaker, executive director of North Park Main Street, the ?community’s Business Improvement District, agreed the impact of the ?theater’s going under would be hard to measure.

“There’s no way I can underestimate the importance of the theater in ?North Park,” she said, adding the theater “is one of the most ?important, if not the most important piece” of the community’s ?redevelopment.?“The tenants in that building are right smack dab in the center of ?North Park,” Studebaker said. “Historically, the (theater) structure ?itself is extremely important to the foundation of our redevelopment ?here, the base of our arts and culture. It’s important to ?redevelopment here to keep that theater active.”

As another nonprofit, Studebaker said the North Park BID can ?appreciate the dilemma the theater finds itself in.

“I know they’re ?in trouble,” she said. “It’s never easy for a nonprofit. This year ?has been exponentially more difficult than normal on nonprofits.”

The North Park Theatre was built in 1928 and is the only theater of ?its size in San Diego County (730 seats) featuring a fly-loft for ?legitimate live theater productions, a full-size movable orchestra ?pit and a projection room for motion picture exhibition. It stopped ?showing movies in 1974 and sat idle for several years. The theater ?was purchased by a church and used for services and Sunday school ?meetings through the 1980s. ?In the late 1980s, the city of San Diego purchased the theater from ?the church with the intention of restoring it to use as a performing ?space. Several plans from developers were rejected, mainly for lack ?of funding.

In 2000, developer Bud Fischer approached Lyric Opera San ?Diego with the approval of the city of San Diego to explore a ?restoration project. Fundraising on the part of Lyric Opera began in ?2001. ?Renovation of the theater has transformed it from an unused, out-of-?date venue to an entertainment destination with high-tech, state-of-the-art staging and lighting systems, projection equipment, and a ?multi-channel theater sound system. Connections to nearby fiber-optic ?lines provide high-speed access to the Internet and to global ?telecommunications systems, enabling simultaneous web casting of ?performances or a hookup to the Convention Center for meetings.

La Jolla Music Society is one of North Park Theatre’s many renters. The organization’s president and artistic director, Christopher ?Beach, said losing the theater would be an incalculable loss to his ?organization and the rest of the San Diego arts community.

“In the last five years we’ve added a new jazz series and expanded ?our dance series that has doubled in the last three years, and we ?present all of those concerts at North Park,” Beach said. “So North ?Park for us is an extraordinary and vital resource.”

Beach said the Birch North Park Theatre is a one-of-a-kind venue fulfilling a ?multitude of artistic performance needs.

“It’s the combination of the ?right size and the right location with a stage house that permits ?dance,” unlike other theater venues around town, said Beach, adding, ?“You can present dance at North Park and present it beautifully.”

Beach commended Natker on his management of North Park Theatre and on ?how accommodating he’s been with bookings, noting he has “been an ?extraordinary colleague and helped in many ways.” Contemplating the possibility of the curtain coming down, Beach said, ?“I think the North Park Theater is too important a resource for that ?to happen. I sure hope he’s (Natker’s) successful in raising the money.”

For information, visit www.birchnorthpaktheatre.net or call (619) 239-8836.