Times Herald-Record
January18, 2013
Just four months after reopening with a new identity, the Sugar Loaf Performing Arts Center is undergoing growing pains that includes a rift that pushed its executive director to quit.
Paul Ellis, founder of Air Pirates Radio Theater, announced through a press release that his group needed a new home after a falling-out with the venue's board of trustees. He said he quit as executive director, citing an inability to work with members of the board.
"Basically these people talk instead of listen and ended up booking far more shows than they should've done," Ellis said.
Ellis, who had been producing Air Pirates Radio Theater shows for years at the former Lycian Centre for the Performing Arts, helped shift ownership of the Lycian from founder Richard Logothetis to the nonprofit Kings Theatre Company in January 2012. Kings announced its purchase in March, and ownership officially turned over in September. On Oct. 6, Suzanne Vega performed the debut show at the renamed and slightly renovated theater.
According to William Sunkel, secretary of the Sugar Loaf Performing Arts Center board of trustees, who joined the board in August, the nonprofit organization is having the same sorts of issues that most nonprofits endure early in their life cycles.
"These things are typically very difficult to run and make profitable," Sunkel said. "Based on what I know, I don't think there's a performing arts center in a 500-mile radius that hasn't gone through the same thing."
At the crux of Ellis' exit was a discrepancy about his production of "The Reindeer Monologues," an unusual Christmas show in that it focuses on alleged sexual harassment of a reindeer by Santa Claus. Sunkel said the play's inclusion was "a late change" to the schedule, substituting Ellis' originally planned production of "'Twas the Night Before," and the board agreed to the change.
After reading about "The Reindeer Monologues," Sunkel said concerns were raised about content, and both parties agreed Ellis' Loose Cannon Theatre Company would produce the show, with profits going toward that organization. "We said, 'Look, let it go forward,'" Sunkel said. "It may not be something we feel was up to the quality of an in-house production, but certainly Paul can go forward."
Ellis called the ordeal "a censorship attempt."
(There was) no attempt to censor the show," Sunkel said, "or to suppress any sort of free speech of creative expression."
The board is seeking members, according to Dawn Ansbro, executive director of the Orange County Arts Council. She said the venue needs to focus on its future. "What the organization should be doing -- and I've volunteered to do this -- is do community focus groups," she said. "Talk to people about what they want out of that building so that they are an inclusive organization. It's a gorgeous space and it's necessary to have it in Orange County."
Air Pirates, which is without a regular home, is working with Ansbro to form new partnerships.
