Sonora, CA…Connie Williams, Stage 3 Theatre Company’s board chair, has announced that the 24-year-old theatre company has exhausted all avenues in locating alternative theatre facilities to complete its 2017 season and must “go dark.” According to Williams, it is not likely that Stage 3 will produce shows until at least mid 2018 to early 2019. “The board has been looking at one building in historic downtown Sonora that might be suitable but renovations will be extensive and will take time and money.”

Stage 3’s previous location at S. Green Street is still under renovation and no completion date is contemplated by building developer Doug Kennedy.

“In addition to our facilities issue, the star of our production, Lady With All The Answers scheduled to open September 8th at MyAct Theater, actress Sherry Dumos, took a recent fall which has resulted in extensive surgery and rehab. With no understudy available at this short date, Stage 3 has been forced to postpone this production until we ramp up our 2018-2019 seasons.”

Educating Rita and The Underpants, the first two 2017 offerings, have been performed at Columbia College and Sonora High School, however, both schools are now in session and unavailable for the rest of the year. While fun to produce at alternative theatre locations, our two traveling productions were far less successful than we had hoped. The board feels people were under the impression we had already closed down during construction regardless of our marketing efforts.

Williams went on to explain that Stage 3 is also forced to layoff its paid staff, furlough its volunteers, and close the Washington Street office. Williams said “The entire Stage 3 board is heartsick that we have to risk permanently losing Operations Manager Kimberley Simmons and Technical and Production Director Hugo Martinez.”

As per Williams “This is a tremendous blow to the 24-year-old theater company. We were expecting to kickoff our 25-year anniversary in the new, state-of-the-art theater space at the location on S Green Street in Historic Sonora. It now appears that we will have to secure a more permanent location, away from the space we have occupied for the last 10 years.”

A letter to season ticket holders, prepaid ticket purchasers, advertisers, sponsors, and donors will be going out soon, further explaining this difficult business decision. Our telephone number and website will be operational so interested parties can contact the board to see how the community can become involved to bring Stage 3’s cutting edge productions back…..sooner rather than later.”