Independent Performers Concerned About City's Plans for Polly Hannah Klaas Center

A plan to convert the Polly Hannah Klaas Performing Arts Center into a facility managed by Cinnabar has some worried that it will leave independent performance artists without a space to call their own.

For more than a decade, the center on Western Avenue has stood empty, condemned and considered unsafe for anyone to enter. But if the Friends of Petaluma Recreation, a group that wants to create a small tax to fund eight parks and rec projects, succeed in getting voter approval, the center would get an infusion of an estimated $1 million and open in a matter of years.

Under the current plan, the facility would be managed by , which would run children’s programs there and rent out space to other community groups. But some worry that Cinnabar’s managing the space equates to controlling what programs are allowed and how much community groups pay. Currently, the theater charges $250 to $500 a day for performers who want to rent their stage.

“There is a huge demand for affordable community space,” said Colette McMullen, the director of Petaluma the Musical, which performed at last year and will rent out the on B Street for this year’s production. “Even if someone could afford to pay them the rent, they would still have to work around their schedule and it will be impossible to have their own productions. There’s no truly independent community performance space.”

Ely Lichenstein, Cinnabar’s executive director, says such worries are premature. The $52 annual tax has not even been approved by voters and that only a small percent—$160,000 out of an estimated $1.5 million needed for the restoration—has been raised.

“I can’t speak how much it (the rental) would cost, but the idea is to have it open and affordable to the rest of the community,” Lichenstein said. “We have offered the city to do the day to day management because we have the expertise, but I just can’t imagine Cinnabar would want exclude those people who are earnestly trying to provide something for the community.”

But as it stands now, there is some mistrust that Cinnabar will take other performing groups’ needs into consideration. Last year when Cinnabar was struggling financially, Petaluma Readers’ Theater offered to but on a benefit performance, but was ignored, said Jennifer March, the artistic director of the group.

“I don’t really feel that they are connected to grassroots theater or are doing anything to support independent theater,” March said, adding that her group now has to practice in actors’ homes and put on shows at local galleries because of a lack of performance space.

“This facility is parks and recreation; it belongs to the people and we should all have equal access to it,” she said.

Mark Ferguson, co-founder of Friends of Petaluma Recreation and a former Parks and Recreation Commissioner, said that even if the parcel tax is approved in November, the money raised won’t be enough to finance the entire renovation. Instead, it will have to be coupled with grants and the $160,000 currently in escrow with the city. 

“There just isn’t enough space for performing arts in the community, but how the city orchestrates managing the facility will be up to them,” he said. “We just want to give them the money so they have that ability…But at the end of the day, I think it will be important to open this to all the groups in the community.”

Who do you think should manage the Polly Hannah Klaas Performing Arts Center? The city? Cinnabar? Share your thoughts in the comments below.