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ShortLived VI, a brief play competition, at PianoFight in 2017. (Photo by Daniel Burke.)<\/p>\n
SAN FRANCISCO and OAKLAND, CALIF.:<\/strong> PianoFight<\/a> has introduced that its two venues will shut in March. The Bay Area establishment will host scheduled occasions, together with SF SketchFest,<\/a> by means of March 18.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course it\u2019s sad to close, but we\u2019re so grateful, and so proud of what we\u2019ve been able to do,\u201d govt director Dan Williams mentioned in an announcement. \u201cWe\u2019ve hosted comedy, plays, music, dance, drag, magic, burlesque, circus, podcasts, films, video game tournaments, and game shows. We said yes to everything because we could, we wanted to, and it was more fun than saying no.\u201d<\/p>\n PianoFight started as a brand new works producing collective in 2007, evolving to venues in two cities with 4 phases, rehearsal studios, a restaurant and bar, workplace area, and an artwork gallery. PianoFight has generated $25 million for the native financial system and paid roughly $1.3 million on to Bay Area artists. <\/p>\n PianoFight\u2019s authentic venue closed in 2011, however their present San Francisco location opened in 2014. The Oakland location opened in 2020 and has been the after-school dwelling of center and highschool college students from the Oakland School for the Arts.<\/a> The firm has additionally produced site-specific work within the Bay Area, toured California, and produced work in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n In addition to SF SketchFest, PianoFight has been the house of Leela Improv Theatre,<\/a> the SF Neo-Futurists,<\/a> and the Formerly Incarcerated People\u2019s Performance Project,<\/a> amongst different native theatre teams.<\/p>\n \u201cPianoFight started because we thought there could be a different and fun way of doing things,\u201d inventive director Rob Ready mentioned in an announcement. \u201cWe wanted to lower the barrier to entry so more people could perform and provide infrastructure so artists could focus on art. We wanted all that to be sustainable, and until COVID struck, it was.\u201d<\/p>\n The pandemic floor PianoFight\u2019s ahead momentum to a halt. In 2020, the San Francisco arts group raised $100,000 to assist PianoFight stay open by means of the yr, however the pandemic\u2019s persistence affected operations prices too drastically. <\/p>\n \u201cWe made a lot of assumptions about the pandemic, most of which ended up being wrong,\u201d operations director Duncan Wold mentioned in an announcement. \u201cThe most off-base being that once we reopened, artists and audiences would be so hungry for live performance, the business would be there. Unfortunately, that wasn\u2019t the case.\u201d<\/p>\n Wold mentioned that enterprise has hovered at 35 % of pre-pandemic ranges and that the venues hosted about 500 fewer exhibits in 2022 than in 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cOn a fundamental level, PianoFight operated by just saying yes to basically everything,\u201d Ready mentioned. \u201cWe thought that SF needed a place where someone could show up to see a world premiere play, grab dinner, catch a band after, and hang out with all the artists in the bar\u2014or be the person making any of those. We feel very fortunate. This has been the experience of a lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n