Fallen Willows by / Sam Hurwitt

Well, it’s official. On Monday the Contra Costa Times reported that Willows Theatre Company would be closing both its 210-seat main stage in Concord and its 160-seat cabaret space in Martinez. The sole source reporting the demise of the 38-year-old theatre company was Martinez Mayor Rob Schroder, with no word from the company itself. The Willows’ website was down, and artistic director Eric Inman and managing director David Faustina were on vacation in Europe. Schroder turned the conversation instead to his hopes for the future of the Campbell Theatre in Martinez, where the Willows had been producing its second-stage shows.

The Willows had certainly been in trouble before. In 2009 it went as far as to close its longtime home in the Willows Shopping Center in Concord, only to reopen it again in early 2011 after striking a new deal with the city of Concord. But each of these moves was accompanied by prompt press releases from the company, which was conspicuously silent this time.

Two Theatre Bay Area staff members just happened to be part of the cast of the show the Willows was currently running, “A Doll’s House,” director of field services Dale Albright and membership and marketing associate Kendra Oberhauser, and this news report on Monday was the first they’d heard about the theatre’s closure. As Dale reported in his previous post about this situation, they were informed Monday night that the remaining six performances of the run were cancelled. A number of other actors cast in upcoming Willows shows commented on that story, saying that they’d also learned about the closure through the news—some of them through Dale’s article itself.

Since then, the plot thickened. Wednesday the Contra Costa Times followed up, having finally reached Willows board president Dennis Woodard, who said that Schroder’s announcement was premature, and that the board would be meeting Wednesday night to decide the future of the company. Although the city of Martinez subsidizes the Campbell Theatre and is stuck with the lease for two more years whether the Willows is there or not, it turned out that the mayor felt he could speak so authoritatively about the theatre company’s business because his mother-in-law is on the board. An additional item in Sally Hogarty’s Curtain Calls column on MercuryNews.com added the news that managing director Faustina had been laid off at the end of July, just before he and artistic director Inman left for Europe. “I had high hopes that the season would be completed as that was specifically discussed at the board meeting at the end of July,” Inman was quoted as saying in the latter item.

Sure enough, the next day (today) brought a press release from the Willows stating that the board of directors has opted to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy and close down Willows Theatre Company. “The board of directors, the management and the staff of the Willows wish to thank all of the patrons, actors, donors, sponsors and supporters through whose support allowed us to bring quality live theatre to the East Bay since 1977,” the release states. “The Board of Directors apologizes to all of you for any disappointment and inconvenience that this decision may have caused.” The release also states that Center Repertory Company has invited Willows subscribers and ticket holders to use their tickets to attend Center Rep’s upcoming production of “Lucky Stiff,” running August 31 through October 7 at Lesher Center for the Arts. The press release gives no context for the closure, letting the bankruptcy speak for itself.

By this point, the Willows has become a case study in how not to manage communication about a theatre closure. Social media was abuzz with the news for days before there was any peep from the board or staff, with many people who thought they’d be working at the Willows in months to come hearing only through the grapevine that they probably weren’t. We can only hope that someone contacted them before the press release went out. 


Sam Hurwitt is editor-in-chief for Theatre Bay Area. He is also the author of The Idiolect, a blog about theatre, movies, comics, media and the decline and fall of Western civilization. E-mail sam@theatrebayarea.org.