Summer Music Festival canceled

Cinnabar Theater cites uncertainty over city funding

March 31, 2004

By KATIE WATTS
ARGUS-COURIER STAFF

If you want to hear live music in town this summer, you may need to hum it yourself. Cinnabar Theater is putting its popular Summer Music Festival on hiatus this year, because of potential city budget cuts.

Cinnabar gets $70,000 each year from the city as its share of the $522,000 the city receives from a 10 percent transient occupancy tax (TOT) on local hotels.

But with the state's current economic crisis, the city may need to use those TOT funds in other areas.

"We are looking at a $70,000 shortfall from the city," said Elly Lichenstein, Cinnabar's artistic director. "That means we don't have a publicity budget for the music festival."

The problem, she said, is the music festival does not make money for the theater group. "We do this as a gift to the city, and a gift to ourselves. We budget in a big loss, but if we have to budget in a bigger loss, we couldn't sustain it."

Lichenstein emphasized this is not the end of the Summer Music Festival. "We fully intend to bring it back next year. It's incredibly hard work, probably the most labor-intensive project we do all year, but the most rewarding because every night we get to listen to great music."

Cinnabar will use the time for making repairs to the theater building, repairs that are long overdue. And, she emphasized, the repairs are being funded privately, by the Klebe family.

The theater group will also work to find more off-site locations to hold some of the Music Festival's events. "This is supposed to be a city-wide festival," Lichenstein said, "and we need to find more neat sites.

"We've got a new and wonderful relationship with the Mahoney Library (on the Santa Rosa Junior College Petaluma campus), and a budding relationship with the museum. We just need to find other key locations people will want to go to highlight the beauty of the music."

While the city has not yet notified Cinnabar it won't be receiving TOT funds, the decision to suspend the festival was made in case the funding will be reduced or omitted.

Concerned locals can do several things, Lichenstein said. They can lobby the City Council, reminding it that "cultural tourism is a big dollar item for revenues and taxes. We are not a losing proposition. We pay for ourselves.

"And we can remind the City Council that we are providing a service that, I think, is beloved by the community, and is necessary to the community."

In addition to its musical and theatrical offerings, Lichenstein said over 300 children, youth to late teens, are enrolled in classes at the theater.

People are, of course, welcome to send checks, Lichenstein said, and they can subscribe to Cinnabar's next season. "If we fill the seats, then we're in good shape."

(Contact Katie Watts at kwatts@arguscourier.com)