The current run of 'Henry V' will be SSC's last Shakespeare production.
After rumors that seemed to build every year since Shakespeare Santa Cruz almost went under in 2008, UCSC announced this week that the company will close for good after its holiday show in December. Maybe it’s true, as the Bard himself wrote, that the valiant never taste of death but once. Still, this sucks.
Locals and ex-locals barraged the SCW office with emails and texts Monday afternoon, asking how this could possibly be happening. We can only refer to the annoying irony of “neither a borrower nor a lender be,” as SSC is in the hole just shy of $2 million.
Even more annoying is not having the luxury of blaming it on the big, bad UC system—in actuality, the university has increased its funding of the company significantly since it went into emergency mode five years ago, spending $1.5 million on SSC, as opposed to less than half that over the previous five years.
Still, the university reported that the group had a shortfall of $750,000 for the 2012-2013 season. Clearly, the bigger problem was that the iconic troupe, who over 32 years transformed from a local cult hit to a renowned Shakespeare destination, simply wasn’t bringing in the dollars from audiences. And this year they seemed to be between a rock and a hard place, downsizing their season in an attempt to deal with economic reality, while at the same time giving up their ability to make up lost ground in ticket sales.
What the loss of such a celebrated and innovative group says about the overall state of theater is a question no one we know has the heart to answer right now. It’s bad enough just thinking about how this loss impacts the Santa Cruz arts scene, and the people who’ve struggled to keep it going for years now. Perhaps it’s strangely fitting that SSC is wrapping up its last summer festival with Henry V, the finale of Shakespeare’s greatest epic story.
The holiday show, It’s a Wonderful Life, will go on as scheduled Nov. 15- Dec. 8. Meanwhile, all we can do, it seems, is sheath our sword for lack of argument.
