Vote for Z Space to win new furnishings for our home at Theater Artaud! Click here to cast your vote.
Z Space is a bustling arts center, hosting thousands of audience members and dozens of arts companies every year. We produce and develop new plays of our own, and we tour shows on other continents. We provide a unique, historic, and highly desired arts venue known for the high quality and affordability of its performances. Schools all around the Bay Area are enriched by our Youth Arts program, and we partner with community organizations to give high school students summer jobs. Despite all of this, however, we cannot afford to heat our office.
As simple a thing as heating is beyond our reach because of our unique workspace. Our workspace is an old factory floor, vast and beautiful, but extremely challenging for administrative work. We recently took over the lease on Theatre Artaud, and we’ve vowed to improve its facilities and continue its great history. For the last few years, the space was deteriorating, but after only six months here, Z Space has managed to rebuild the stage, improve the lighting and sound systems, and book dozens of theater companies for high quality programming. Z Space has revitalized this historic venue and brought new audiences through its doors.
Despite these great strides, we must face the cold days without space heaters because we cannot afford them. We must work in an office space that has the same oil-stained, smelly flooring that was present eighty years ago when the building was first erected. Our audiences must tread a thirty year old soft panel wood lobby floor that chips and wears with every performance, and they have to sit on folding chairs if the theater isn’t yet open. Guests to our offices must sit in thread-bare conference room chairs that sometimes have protruding nails or missing wheels. Our staff must yank open and slam closed old filing cabinets that look like they’ve been through a washing machine. Our box office personnel must be careful with their backs because their chairs don’t reach the counter. In addition, due to a scarcity of desk space, some of our staff have to coordinate in sharing desks and computers. The staff members who do have desks have no wall space near their desks to post important items, and no dividers that cut down noise and allow for private phone conversations or concentration on tasks.
The irony is that we have a tremendous amount of space, but it’s all vertical; most of the building’s floor space is taken up by the theatre and lobby. We believe this to be the primary asset for our work area, and if GoodDeeds were to help our company, we would first ask for new office furniture that created shelving, cabinets, and storage space above our desks. This would allow us to put in more desks so our company could spend less time juggling desks and computers and more time providing for our community. We would also request several space heaters that could keep us warm so that our spirits and our health were up to the daunting task of making art with little funding. So that our audience could sit in comfortable chairs while waiting for a performance, we would request a lobby makeover, fully equipped with a floor that didn’t need to be re-sanded and or repainted every two months. So that we could have phone conversations in private and so that we could concentrate, we would ask for wall dividers between the desks.
The Z Space does many things, but it uses the vast majority of its funds to put on award winning performances, to provide an invaluable arts venue to our country, and to go into classrooms and provide arts education to students who might never otherwise receive it. Because we love what we do, the concerns of our office space always comes second place in the budget, but this choice has its price. We spend more time than we should looking through awkward storage, we waste time negotiating between ourselves for desk access, we get sick from sitting in the cold all day. In essence, we waste time because our facilities are not up to par.
Thank you for considering Z Space and for this opportunity to present our case. We hope that you can help us continue our mission. We feel honored to be considered among the many worthy community organizations that have submitted.
