Studio Arena heads toward liquidation
Over the last six months, die-hard supporters of idle Studio Arena Theatre wrote personal checks to cover its heating, electrical and insurance bills while they struggled to resolve a structural deficit approaching $3 million.
It got them nowhere. Creditors have been told that the campaign to save the region’s only resident theater has been dropped and that Studio Arena will move to liquidate its assets in U. S. Bankruptcy Court next month.
“We tried very hard to hold on,” said Audre Bunis, who became board chairwoman in late 2008 as the organization sought to restructure its debt under Chapter 11 of the federal Bankruptcy Code. “But it became apparent that with the economic times, it was not going to be so easy.”
The decision to switch to a Chapter 7 proceeding, or straight bankruptcy, came after potential donors rejected the theater board’s requests for money to clear the massive debt so that Studio Arena, which went dark in February 2008, would be free to someday mount a comeback.
“We realized things were not going the way we wanted,” said Bunis, who has been a Studio board member, officer and fundraiser for 30 years.
Though a group of banks that were owed $650,000 agreed not to press for repayment, there was no apparent way to repay the Fund for Theater, which holds a $1 million second mortgage on the Main Street playhouse, and many thousands more owed to hundreds of unsecured creditors, said Henry P. “Hank” Semmelhack, another longtime supporter and a leader of the “Save Studio” movement.
With that effort now abandoned, the next-best outcome would be for the City of Buffalo, Shea’s Performing Arts Center and others with a stake in the Theater District to make sure the building lives on as a performing arts rental house, instead of letting it be put to another use or torn down, Bunis said.
She said she has received “numerous” calls from theater and music groups and film festival organizers interested in renting the stage.
“If the building is to be saved, that is the way it has to go,” she said.
Bunis said she is confident that “there are enough people, enough important people,” who agree.
Though the demise of the Studio Arena is a defeat for the arts community, there still remain about 20 other theater companies in the area.
But the idea that there may never again be a producing theater at 710 Main St., let alone one with Studio Arena’s pedigree, is a bitter pill for Bunis and Semmelhack, who headed the board in the 1990s.
In the years since, the theater “lost its message” as the region’s primary producing theater — one that attracted first-rate actors, directors and designers — and at the same time lost audience to a growing number of local companies that were turning out high-quality stage work, Semmelhack said.
“To see the vibrant theater we had 15 years ago collapse is very sad,” he said.
The bankruptcy further clouds the fate of 82-year-old Studio Arena School, the nation’s oldest theater school, whose alumni include such well-known actors as John Schuck and the late Nancy Marchand. A board subcommittee is studying ways to revive the teaching program, Semmelhack said.
A hearing on Studio Arena’s petition to liquidate is set for July 15 in Bankruptcy Court.
“However this turns out, I’ll be ready to accept it,” Bunis said. “We’ve tried everything — everything! But if the building turns out to be a performing arts center, I’ll be elated. You’ll hear me shouting from the rooftops.”
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