Facing extinction, Cal Shakes needs $350,000 by Aug. 1 to save its one play this summer

The venerable East Bay theater company is facing a sudden funding shortfall that could force it to cancel its highly anticipated production of 'As You Like It' -- and to close down for good.

California Shakespeare Theater, the venerable East Bay company that provided crucial early training to such Hollywood luminaries as Zendaya, Mahershala Ali and Annette Bening, has launched a desperate campaign to raise $350,000 by Thursday so that it can present one of its heralded versions of the Bard’s classic plays and save itself from the possibility of closing for good.

Cal Shakes launched a GoFundMe campaign last week, just as the company should be gearing up to celebrate its 50th anniversary season with a production of “As You Like It” at its picturesque Bruns Amphitheater in the hills west of Orinda. But there’s more at stake than this one production, executive director Clive Worsley explained Monday. If the show can’t go on Sept. 12-29, some 100 Bay Area actors and crew members will lose work, and the company will have to lay off staff.

But even more, the company may not be able to survive if it cancels this show, Worsley said.

Permanent closure of Cal Shakes is “definitely in the realm of possibility, sadly,” Worsley said. He explained that it would be very hard the company to mount a comeback next summer if it cancels “As You Like It.” Cal Shakes didn’t produce a season in 2023, and Worsley doesn’t think the company’s audience or its community of artists would “rally behind us if we have to cancel this show. It would be a black eye for us and very difficult to recover from.”

The company’s current crisis erupted when expected funding for “As You Like It” suddenly didn’t come through, Worsley said. The shortfall came after the sets had been designed and were being built and the actors had been cast and were preparing to begin rehearsals on Aug. 13, he said.

“It’s a big ask in a very short period of time,” Worsley acknowledged about the $350,000 fundraising goal, which the company can meet either with donations or pledges of donations. “We had expected that some other funding opportunities would come through for us, and those did not,” he said.

“The last thing we wanted to do is an emergency fundraising campaign: ‘Save our shows, save our theater,'” Worsley said, explaining that the emergency fundraisers have become common for performing arts groups who have struggled to stay afloat in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One Bay Area group that pulled off an emergency fundraiser was TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, which faced a $3 million budget deficit that could have ended its 2023-24 season. Over 16 weeks, starting in August 2023, the campaigned raised $4 million, more than its goal, after the company found unrealized support among South Bay arts lovers.

Cal Shakes clearly hopes to rally the same enthusiastic support among people who appreciate what it uniquely offers to the Bay Area arts landscape: top Bay Area artists performing the great dramas and comedies of Shakespeare, among other works, under the night sky in a picturesque valley surrounded by hills and oak trees.

One of the company’s biggest fans is Zendaya, the Oakland-reared movie star and fashion icon who began hanging out at Cal Shakes summer shows because her mother had a seasonal job as the company’s house manager. As a girl, the future star of “Euphoria,” “Dune” and “Challengers” began taking acting classes at Cal Shakes as she learned to overcome her shyness and to develop confidence as a performer.

In February, Cal Shakes jubilantly announced that a $100,000 donation from Zendaya would help it fund a production “As You Like It,” Shakespeare’s boisterous romantic comedy, featuring Rosalind and Orlando in the Forest of Arden.

In past years, Cal Shakes was known for producing four shows per summer, but the company canceled its entire season in 2020 due to the pandemic. It returned with truncated seasons in 2021 and 2022, as it also sought to diversify its revenue stream by renting the Bruns amphitheater to comedy acts and other group’s productions.

Like many performing arts groups, Cal Shakes began to see a decline in revenue before the pandemic, due to changes in audiences’ tastes and habits, Worsley said. Audiences have become older and have found that TV streaming allows them to get their entertainment at home, instead of going to plays or to movie theaters. The pandemic kept people in lockdown for months, and it forced arts companies all over the country to cancel seasons and lay off staff. Some companies couldn’t come back and have since closed.

“This is a problem for all nonprofit arts groups,” Worsley said. “Funding is just down — government funding, private foundations, private individuals. The trends are way down.”

Worsley charts Cal Shakes’ troubles to the 2008 recession. Back then, the company could rely on ticket sales to cover 50% of operating costs; now is is happy if they can cover cover 30%.

Even with the very short time frame to raise the money, Worsely and the rest of the company remain  “hopeful” that its fundraising goal will be met. The theme of its campaign is “This Wide and Universal Theatre,” a phrase from a passage in “As You Like It.”

“Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy,” the passages says.  “This wide and universal theater / Presents more woeful pageants than the scene / Wherein we play in.”