Saba is determined that this closure is only an intermission and San Diego Junior Theatre will live on to celebrate its 73rd season. You’re having a relationship not only with actors on stage, but with sharing the experience in a room,” he said. We say there’s an energy in the audience even before the play starts. Once it is safe again, he predicts a resurgence in theater and other live performances because people will crave the feel of warm bodies in a room together. “That’s probably the closest thing but we persevered through that and we were in our infancy at that time,” Saba said.Įven when social distancing ends, Saba doubts that many people will want to be in small classrooms or crowded theaters for a while which is why they are preparing for a protracted crisis. The keys and credit cards turned in by the nonprofit’s former employees In 1948, a polio outbreak in San Diego forced the theater to shutter in July, the height of their programming while children under 10 were banned from playgrounds, movie theaters, and other gatherings. Unlike other organizations that have called this crisis unprecedented, SDJT went through a similar crisis in its fourth year. What is especially heartbreaking for her was that society was moving in a direction where arts are seen as necessary for survival both individually and as a community. It affects the kids, the educators because so much of what we do is seen as extra or superfluous or not essential,” Crownover said. “The thing that really makes me sad is whenever something like this that hits everybody, it affects the nonprofits the most. When she turned in her key, she said she spent the week overwhelmed with questions about what will happen to the 30,000 kids Junior Theatre touches per year as well as how she will pay her electric bill. She has been with Junior Theatre for much of the last 25 years, weathering financial downturns, swine flu, and challenges internal and external. To maintain social distancing, it was impersonal and never the process they would have wanted to say goodbye.Īrtistic director Desha Crownover’s job was eliminated in the cuts. On Friday, March 27, Saba and Corder met with each of the laid off employees so they could turn in their keys and sign paperwork at Corder’s apartment complex. He also views laying off the staff as the best decision for them financially so they can apply for unemployment benefits and enroll in Covered California instead of being furloughed or having their pay and hours cut. There’s no day-to-day work to really make happen,” Saba said. ![]() I think everyone understands that from the standpoint of, if we don’t have kids we don’t have a space, we don’t have a program. But I don’t think there’s anger at us for making that decision. (Left to right) Junior Theatre director of operations Carla Corder, executive director Jimmy Saba and former artistic director Desha Crownover discuss Crownover’s healthcare options now that she is unemployed. The reduced budget with only Saba and director of operations Carla Corder on the payroll is projected to last until the end of their fiscal year, Sept. We’ve had to put down to put together some sort of reduced budget,” explained Saba. ![]() We do have some reserves, but without any income coming in those reserves, it would go down super quick. “We’re a small arts organization about $1.3 million in our budget annually. He soon realized that although Balboa Park was only officially closed until April 6, the crisis would stretch longer than that, something the organization could not afford without revenue from ticket sales, classes and summer camps. Initially, Executive Director Jimmy Saba thought he would only need to lay off customer service workers in charge of the box office and everyone else could work from home. When too many people crowded the park just to use the walkways and lawns, access to the entire park and parking lots were blocked, including the offices of SDJT which contained all their scripts, props, and documents. Many of the museums, houses of hospitality and recreation centers were closed early in March. The San Diego Junior Theatre’s offices and program venues are inside Balboa Park. ![]() A confluence of problems at SDJT led to the decision to go on “intermission.” The children’s theater group is not alone in struggling financially: San Diego Civic Theatre and Balboa Theatre laid off nearly half their staff and Cygnet Theatre has focused on fundraising to keep its staff employed while instituting a 20% pay cut across the board. ![]() San Diego Junior Theatre has laid off all but two if its staff members in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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