moving-out sale,<\/a> King and Ruygt decided to pitch themselves to the board. They were the only ones who did so, and immediately, King remembered, \u201cI was ready to accelerate to 150.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nBut a board member cautioned her to slow down, posing questions that included, \u201cIs there a place for Aurora in our community? Or is the perceived failure really telling us that Aurora is no longer relevant?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was hard to hear,\u201d King said. \u201cBut it was smart.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The board did a feasibility study, asking various stakeholders including donors and industry and foundation leaders what they valued about the company, what they were missing from its closure and whether they could find those qualities anywhere else.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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![\"Marga]()
<\/p>\n
Marga Gomez in Aurora Theatre Company\u2019s \u201cThe Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,\u201d directed by Jennifer King.<\/p>\n
Kevin Berne\/Aurora Theatre Company<\/p>\n
The results validated their feelings. Daria Hepps, who joined Aurora\u2019s board in 2024, having also worked as a fundraiser for the company two decades ago, said one recurring theme was the way Aurora hired local actors and designers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an opportunity to become invested in the careers of these folks and see them over and over,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another was how, as Hepps put it, \u201cthe audience members that were sitting across from you became part of your experience of the play.\u201d Those qualities seemed reproducible even without Addison Street.<\/p>\n
Skeptics might wonder why aspiring theater leaders might not start a new company, with their own vision and free of baggage. But Hepps said that during the feasibility study, other such leaders told her, \u201cYou would be nuts to start a theater company right now, because of the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
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![\"David]()
<\/p>\n
David Everett Moore, left, and\u00a0Carrie Paff rehearse \u201cCrumbs from the Table of Joy\u201d at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley on April 12, 2025.<\/p>\n
Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
From that point of view, Aurora\u2019s history is an asset. It has some money in the bank from bequests, along with 1,100 subscribers, a mailing list, a reputation for excellence and goodwill from the community\u00a0\u2014 advantages a new theater company would have to build from scratch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aurora also shed a major expense when it left Addison Street, according to Josh Costello, Aurora\u2019s most recent artistic director.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they were just trying to find a way to get back into space and raise enough money to reopen just the way it was, I\u2019d be saying, \u2018Good luck, but I don\u2019t think that that\u2019s going to work,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cBut that\u2019s not what they\u2019re doing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cI\u2019m behind them 100%.\u201d<\/p>\n
For King, taking time to hibernate and reassess, has been \u201ca gift.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow often do you get to really take that amount of time,\u201d she said, \u201cto look back at what works, what doesn\u2019t work, and what is necessary for the future?\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, Ruygt said, their task\u00a0\u2014 in addition to fundraising\u00a0\u2014 is \u201cbuilding trust with our community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Everett Moore, left, and Asia Nicole Jackson rehearse \u201cCrumbs from the Table of Joy\u201d at the Aurora…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[329,7,332,143,145,144,1058],"class_list":["post-351978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-theater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}