Stage

Onyx Theatre to close? It depends who you ask

Image
A scene from Poor Richard’s Players’ production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, staged at the Onyx Theatre in August 2014.
Richard Brusky
Jacob Coakley

For weeks, rumors of the Onyx’s demise have been circulating. The Rack, the retail outlet that shares space in the Commercial Center with the beloved theater, kicked off a going-out-of-business sale to liquidate all of its stock. There were whispers in the theater community that the current owner of the lease on the space, Morrand LLC, was looking for people to buy out the lease. The landlord even put up a notice that the Rack and the Onyx had 10 days to vacate the premises. (It was later taken down.)

Finally, on December 15, Brandon Burk—artistic director for Off-Strip Productions, the Onyx’s resident theater company—announced on Facebook that he would no longer serve as the artistic director of the Onyx, and that nothing was planned for the space after December 28.

“I don’t know if it’s going to close or not,” Burk explained. “When I started at the Onyx, I hoped to bring more musical theater productions to it and to make it more commercially viable, to make it a place where people in the community want to come.” Lately, he says, circumstances regarding the management of the space had made it more difficult for him to schedule and produce shows, eventually leading to his announcement.

But Tom Conroy, CFO for Morrand, disputes that the Onyx will close at all—and even that Burk is no longer working for Off-Strip Productions. “It’s a bogus story that’s been put out by an employee that’s on leave of absence,” Conroy said by phone today, referring to Burk.

Conroy says he’s actively in talks with local theater producers to take over the space from both an artistic and management standpoint and that his phone “hasn’t stopped ringing” with interested parties.

Conroy says he’s trying to raise $20,000 before the end of the year to keep the space open. He says that’s the amount necessary for rent and utilities for four months, and that if he can get that, one of the individuals interested in taking over the space would put forward an additional $10,000, providing the theater with enough operating capital of make it through June 2015, the originally scheduled end of the season.

As for whether the theater will go for January and February, Conroy said, “I’m truly waiting to see who might step up and take the leap, and it would be up to them on how quickly they could possibly put something up.”

Share
Top of Story