We have announced that Cygnet Theatre will be producing a revival of our very first production, Hedwig and the Angry Inch in the Rolando Theatre this spring. When we first put hammer to drywall and carved out the Rolando Theatre from the Actor’s Asylum in 2003, Hedwig was our leading lady. Well, lady of sorts. There we were in our brand new space with the paint fumes still in the lobby having just put the finishing touches on the walls and trim as the doors opened for our premiere show, a glam rock and roll musical about the heart break and joy of the lead singer of the Angry Inch, Fraulein Hedwig.

Basically, no one had heard of us, how could they have? We had not done ANYTHING yet! We were tucked in a corner of the Aztec Village Mall in Rolando, near SDSU. Who would FIND us? But the power of Hedwig brought people to us and set us off on our Cygnet-y journey. The show ran for twelve weeks! Hed-Heads flocked to the theatre and we loved them for it.

We’ve expanded a little since that summer of 2003! And we find ourselves wanting to grow into the kind of theatre that can support two spaces filled with challenging, entertaining and memorable productions. We have moved into our new home at the Old Town Theatre and have begun producing theater in that space and loving the larger range of opportunities for us and for our patron’s enjoyment there. We are finishing up this current season with overlapping productions of The History Boys, Mauritius, Bed and Sofa and, now we are adding Miss Hedwig and her Angry Inch. Performances for Hedwig and the Angry Inch are June 4 through August 9, 2009.

What we couldn’t have prepared for in all of our dreaming and planning was this dark looming cloud over the economy. It is just not a wise time to be thinking about growing.  We have made the difficult decision to make Hedwig will be the final Cygnet production in the Rolando Theatre. We won’t be renewing our lease on the Rolando Theatre when it expires.

The Rolando Theatre has proven to be a wonderful venue for intimate and exciting theatre and we are so proud of what was created there. And so happy to have brought theatre to the Rolando community and its neighbors, so it makes us sad to end our tenancy in the space.

To continue to produce seasons at both the Old Town Theatre and the Rolando Theatre, we had anticipated increasing the staff to facilitate the new direction we wanted to go in. But, this is a challenging economic environment that we, and arts organizations across the city and nation, are currently facing and we want to survive it by making choices that simplify and reduce our costs before it is a problem, not when it becomes a problem. So, we have decided that, for the time being, the most prudent and financially responsible option would be to concentrate our resources at our new larger venue in Old Town and put off our goal to grow until things settle down a bit.

We have spent so much time creating an exciting theatre space in Rolando, that it’s very important to us that the theatre be passed onto another company that will fulfill the theatre’s potential. The Rolando theatre and neighborhood has been very good to us, and we want to be sure that good theatre is continues to be created there. We have been talking with an arts organization about that opportunity. We’ll post you on the progress!