Oakland Ballet closes curtains after 40 years

The Oakland Ballet, which fought its way back on-stage after canceling a season, will close its doors this week after 40 years in business.

Linda Crayton, acting president of the ballet's board of trustees, announced Tuesday that the company would dissolve.

"Our financial situation and lack of performance venue utterly precludes us from continuing our operations," she said.

The turning point, she and artistic director Karen Brown agreed, was the city's decision to close Calvin Simmons Theater near Lake Merritt, which the ballet had chosen for its long-term home.

"It was the perfect storm," Brown said, "a number of circumstances that all contributed to what's happening."

She cited sagging donations, board "fatigue" and slow ticket sales, which forced the company to dig into its operating reserve. The ballet's budget, even for the abbreviated season, was $1.4 million.

The company will close its office today and liquidate its warehouse full of sets and costumes, Crayton said.

Another casualty of the shutdown, said Brown, was a planned work based on the 1944 Port Chicago Mutiny. That historic event followed an explosion that killed 320 men at what is now the Concord Naval Weapons Station.

In a prepared statement, Mayor Jerry Brown said: "The Oakland Ballet brought pleasure to generations of Oaklanders. It's truly unfortunate that the financial challenges proved overwhelming."

Karen Brown held out slim hope that the troupe could resume operation.

"What will it take to make a dance company work in Oakland? The financial underpinnings," she said. "We didn't have an angel. ... Maybe someone will come forward now that the company is going away. But maybe that's the eternal optimist in me."

The company sprang back to life last fall, after canceling the 2004-05 season, to present an abbreviated, 11-performance season. It performed "The Nutcracker" at its traditional home, the Paramount Theatre, and two other shows at the smaller Calvin Simmons Theater.

The company had scrapped its entire 2004-05 season and set out to raise $500,000 to pay debts and plan for future performances. At the same time, trustees and the company's administrators worked on a strategic plan to build community and financial support.

"The strategic plan was heading in the right direction, but it was a one-year plan," Brown said. "We had to build the airplane while flying it."

When the ballet resumed performances in October, critics were kind, calling the company's revival a "rousing return." But ticket sales did not meet targeted projections, Brown said.

Since it was founded in 1965, Oakland Ballet has become nationally recognized for recreating classics from the early 20th century. Its "Nutcracker" was for many years a smaller-scale, budget-priced alternative to San Francisco Ballet's lavish production.

Brown hoped to create a multicultural work that would eventually replace "Nutcracker" and to program other works that could reflect -- and attract -- the East Bay's diverse population. She is "particularly disappointed artistically" that the Port Chicago piece won't be completed, she said.

Trustees raised $160,000 in individual donations recently in what the company called "a new round" of support. But the board decided at a meeting last Thursday to shut down the ballet. Employees were told Monday that the troupe would not perform again.

Bills have been paid, Crayton said, but there remains an outstanding $37,000 loan from the city that is due in June. "We'll begin negotiations with the city on that issue immediately," she said.

The company's final season included "Billy the Kid," "Les Noces," "Les Biches," "Double Happiness" and "Ella" in October; "Peter and the Wolf," "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "A Short Solo" in November; and "Nutcracker" in December.

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