Revival for local live theater

"110 in the Shade" is presented Aug. 17 to Sept. 2, 2012 at Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma, Calif. This musical version of "The Rainmaker" features features Kelly Britt as Lizzie and Tim Kniffin as Starbuck. Photo by Eric Chazankin

Not so long ago, it looked like the lights might go out forever at Sonoma County’s live theaters. Flagging attendance and a drop in private and corporate donations were taking a toll on local performing troupes.

Two longtime local theater companies closed: Sonoma County Repertory at the Main Street Theater in Sebastopol in early 2011, and the Pacific Alliance Stage Company at the Spreckels Center for the Performing Arts in Rohnert Park in mid-2009.

And a third company, the Cinnabar Theater in Petaluma, reported itself in dire financial straits by the end of December 2010. The company was saved when the theater’s patrons rallied with last-minute contributions in response to pleas from Elly Lichenstein, Cinnabar’s executive and artistic director.

Today, as Cinnabar celebrates it 40th anniversary season with the Broadway musical “110 in the Shade,” the picture has brightened dramatically, not only for Cinnabar, but for Sonoma County theater in general, Lichenstein said.

“At first, I thought that the theater community was dwindling, because we lost some of our flagship companies. But now I think it’s a flourishing community,” she said. “Cinnabar is doing very well right now, and there are lots of new companies.”

Newer companies include Curtain Call in Monte Rio, Transcendence Theater Company, presenting the “Broadway Under the Stars” show-tune concert series in Jack London State Park, and Three Rabbit Productions, which staged “Harvey” and Steve Martin’s “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma earlier this month.

In Sebastopol, the Main Street Theater became home to Main Stage West, an alliance of more than half a dozen small companies and individual performers and musicians, headed by longtime local theater leaders Elizabeth Craven and Keith Baker.

“I feel really good about our first year and a half,” Craven said. “We’re in the black.”

Main Stage West’s survival strategy included producing several co-productions with the other companies, sharing production costs.

Main Stage hosted two shows in partnership with the Imaginists Theater Collective of Santa Rosa, Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker” and Sam Shephard’s “Fool for Love,” and a summer production of the historical drama “Lion in Winter,” done in collaboration with Spreckels in Rohnert Park.

In each case, the partner theater also staged a run of the same production at its own venue. The Imaginists company ran “Caretaker” and “Fool for Love” at its own theater in Santa Rosa’s A Street district, and Spreckels presented “Lion in Winter.”