ST. GEORGE — During a recent work meeting, the future of the Electric Theater and its accompanying facilities took center stage, as city officials discussed its purpose and a proposed fee increase for groups who use it.
In the small conference room the St. George City Council used for its June 22 work meeting, adults and children lined the walls. The majority of them were from two concerned home-school groups who rent multiple classrooms at the Electric Theater Center at least once a week.
Mixed among them were members of local theater groups who use the Electric Theater and the adjacent Electric Theater Center for rehearsals, productions and acting classes.
Concerns over fee hikes
City officials said the reason for the proposed fee hike for the Electric Theater is similar to increases implemented for other city services – it is seen as necessary in order to keep up with the cost of maintenance and operations that have risen due to inflation.
“Organizations like ours are struggling to get by with the rates they are given,” said Adam Record, who serves as the artistic director for the nonprofit Encore! Performing Arts group. “We are in the arts, and there’s not a lot of money in the arts.”
Record and others present said they worried about being priced out of a currently affordable space where none exists elsewhere in town. Additionally, the groups will most likely have to pass the cost of the increase onto the families and patrons that support them if the fee hikes go through, Record said.
“It’s hard to find anywhere remotely affordable in this town,” Becky Hinton, of the Fire Canyon Academy home-school group, told the council.
Fire Canyon Academy is one of two home-school groups currently renting classrooms at the Electric Theater during the day for one day a week, said Shane Moore, the city’s director of leisure services.
Moore said the current fee schedule for the Electric Theater enjoyed by the home-school groups was slipped “under the radar” and subsequently approved by the City Council without their prior knowledge.
Presently, the home-school groups pay $5 an hour per classroom they use. The proposed fee hike will raise that to $20.
“It never should have been $5 – it should have been $15,” Moore said.
Encore! and other theater groups would also see their rates jump with the proposed fee change.
Rates for using the Electric Theater proper – which is separate from the Electric Theater Center where the classrooms, studios and related arts space exist – are also proposed to be increased.
The idea of providing groups with a discount for renting the spaces for a year was discussed, as well as the possibility of opening up other city-owned spaces for the home-school and theater groups’ use, such as the third floor of the St. George Children’s Museum or Social Hall next to the St. George Opera House.
Arts space or community space?
The purpose of the Electric Theater Center “was to be a cultural center” in the middle of town and “an incubator for arts groups,” Moore said.
With the city allowing non-arts specific groups, such as the home-school groups, use of the Electric Theater classrooms, it has given rise to the question of whether the facility is meant to be arts-specific space or general community space.
The home-school representatives present at the meeting said the curriculum they used while at the Electric Theater was arts-focused.
Peyton Smith, the city’s community arts director, said proclaiming the Electric Theater an arts facility first gives priority to the arts groups seeking to use it. On the other hand, declaring it a “community space” can open it to uses not originally designed for the facility. This could include community meetings, people using it as an office space or other activities not tied to the arts.
One issue that prompted the city’s push to redefine the Electric Theater’s mission was one of the home-school groups listing the facility as its address, City Manager John Willis said, adding that the city didn’t want to appear to be sponsoring a charter school, nor take on the liability that could present.
“The city is recommending an arts-first focus,” Willis said.
However, it was noted that the classrooms the home-school groups use during the day would otherwise go unused, particularly during the school year.
“If it’s not being used, what’s the problem?” Councilwoman Danielle Larkin said. “This was created as an arts-focused space. We need to keep the focus on the arts. But if we have empty space – we have these groups that are desperate for space.”
Council members Jimmie Hughes and Natalie Larsen expressed reservations about opening the Electric Theater to general community events, while Councilwoman Michelle Tanner said she didn’t want to see the home-school groups pushed out.
“I don’t want to see us discriminate against the home-schoolers,” Tanner said.
Smith and Willis said some of the objections to offering the Electric Theater as a general community space were the additional wear-and-tear it could create and the potential liability related to large groups of children. Currently, the Electric Theater only has three full-time city employees on staff, and they shouldn’t have to watch over children there, Smith said.
Tanner said it should be the responsibility of the parents to watch their kids and reiterated her desire to not see the class space taken away from the home-school groups.
Mayor Michele Randall, who participated in the meeting via Zoom, also appeared to favor seeing the Electric Theater used rather than sit empty.
“We build them (public facilities) for the community to use,” she said. “We don’t build them to keep people out.”
As this was a work meeting, no vote on future action was taken. For the time being, discussion over the Electric Theater’s primary use and fee increases will continue and be the subject of an upcoming council agenda item.
While the bulk of the work meeting’s discussion tended to focus on the home-school groups, Record said he hopes the city will work with the theater groups in a way that is equal and fair to all involved as it felt like left some groups were viewed more favorably than others at times.
“We just want fair treatment,” he said.
The Electric Theater
The current iteration of the Electric Theater opened in August 2015 as a city-owned arts facility. It is meant to serve as an anchor in the city’s downtown arts district and promote the city’s arts community.
The theater proper features over 300 seats set before a stage for live performances that can be converted into a movie theater – the theater’s original purpose. In the buildings adjacent to the theater are an art gallery and various classroom and studio spaces for artistic pursuits of various kinds, along with a large room in the basement designed to function as a dance studio.
The original theater was built in 1911 and has seen near-continuous use in one form or another prior to the city acquiring it. It has since become a home for local arts groups and played host to various area film festivals.
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