THEATER DISTRICT
Shea’s seeks title to Studio Arena site for use as a venue
Published: July 03, 2009, 12:30 am
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Shea’s Performing Arts Center wants to take title to Studio Arena Theatre’s darkened Main Street building and keep it as a venue for live productions by the area’s many theater groups, now that longtime Studio supporters have given up their campaign to save it.
“We are working with the [Studio Arena] endowment and bank consortium on a plan to take over the building and programming,” Anthony C. Conte, Shea’s president, said Wednesday.
It was disclosed Tuesday that Studio Arena, which was nearly $3 million in debt when it went dark in early 2008 after more than 40 years as the region’s premier stage, will move to liquidate its assets in U. S. Bankruptcy Court.
Those assets — the one-time burlesque house at 700 Main and its sparse contents — have been appraised at about $700,000, Conte said.
His expectation is that Studio Arena’s banks, which are owed $650,000 and head a long line of creditors in the bankruptcy proceedings, will deed over the building to Shea’s in order to keep it going as a Theater District anchor.
After Studio Arena collapsed, many observers believed that it would not reopen as a producing theater and that the best option would be for Shea’s, a 3,000-seat theater, to revive the neighboring 600-seat stage as a rental facility.
Though Shea’s said little publicly as Studio leaders unsuccessfully sought to restructure the heavy debt load under Chapter 11 of the federal Bankruptcy Code, the board has worked to come up with an alternative for the property, Conte said.
The plan had to be one “that absolutely would not put Shea’s at risk,” he said. Less than a decade ago, Shea’s was in a fiscal jam after a multimillion- dollar expansion, “and we’ve worked hard to put ourselves on sound footing,” Conte said.
Under the emerging scenario, any local or regional company or college theater department could rent the Studio Arena building for productions befitting a venue of that size.
“We’ve talked with foundations and government officials, and there’s a fair amount of support for the plan,” Conte said, adding that several Theatre Alliance of Buffalo member companies expressed “immediate” interest in staging productions in the Main Street playhouse. “It would be a great opportunity for them,” he said.
Shea’s would handle programming, supervise building operations and set up a maintenance fund. Foundations would be asked to chip in some start-up money.
“The key is, we think we can keep the facility functioning and self-sustaining,” Conte said. “We’re very confident that it would quickly begin generating sufficient revenue.”
Shea’s believes that the building “is very important to Theater District and the community” and that leaving it to some other fate “would be a shame — a travesty,” Conte said.
A hearing is scheduled for July 15 in Bankruptcy Court on Studio Arena’s petition to liquidate under Chapter 7 of the code.
tbuckham@buffnews.com
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