The Seasons is singing the blues as it struggles to stay open

YAKIMA, Wash. — After word got out Thursday that the city may shut down The Seasons Performance Hall this week, an outpouring of support quickly followed.

The Italian Renaissance-style building, constructed in 1917, needs a sprinkler system to meet fire safety codes.

But, really, sprinklers are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to The Seasons' struggles, admits Pat Strosahl, a music lover and co-owner of United Builders of Washington, which has footed much of the bill for The Seasons since the Strosahl family bought the building in 2005.

"When we first bought the building, we thought we'd just be donating the building," explained Strosahl while sitting in the nonprofit performance hall that's become nationally known for its stellar acoustics and top-notch lineup of jazz, blues and classical artists. It was also an early player in efforts at enhancing downtown Yakima, which has seen several new restaurants, shops and wine bars open in the last few years.

The plan was to buy the building, renovate it and then essentially turn it over to the Seasons Music Festival, the nonprofit organization that would call the venue home and book its concerts. The main hall -- under the dome ceiling that gives off those magnificent acoustics -- would be the nonprofit music venue, while the old Sunday school room in the back would become a money-making wine co-op and bistro.

"That money would be help to make The Seasons work to be a self-sustaining operation," explained Strosahl. "It is not for us. It was always intended to make the festival work and The Seasons work as a community enterprise."

And that's still the plan.

But for the past four years, the Strosahl family has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the performance hall to keep it in operation.

Transforming this former the Church of Christ, Scientist is proving a much bigger and more costly task than the Strosahls ever imagined, and coming up to code has stalled the wine co-op idea.

"It changed the whole equation," he said.

First, The Seasons must deal with the sprinkler issue or go dark. For every show, The Seasons has paid a firefighter to be on the premises.

The building has a sprinkler system. But the contractor who installed it won't meet with city officials to test the system until being paid the $100,000 he's due.

"I do not blame the contractor at all," said Strosahl, who remains confident a solution can be found. "I believe I have a plan A, B or C, all of which that will take care of the fire sprinkler issue."

Strosahl is sure one of those three plans -- which include either city or private loans -- will keep The Seasons open.

Second, the building also needs to be handicap accessible and to add more and larger bathrooms, which has to happen before the back room can be remodeled into the revenue-generating wine co-op and bistro. Strosahl estimates the remodel at another $200,000.

When all that is done, the building -- hopefully no longer a money pit -- will be turned over to the Seasons Music Festival.

But in a deeply uncertain economy, United Builders can no longer be The Seasons' "sugar daddy."

The sprinkler issue is fortuitous in that it's forced the realization there needs to be a stable funding level and there are plans for a pledge drive of some sort in the near future, Strosahl said.

"This is the pivotal point, the make-or-break point," said Noël Moxley, Yakima Symphony Orchestra executive director and Seasons board member. "And I hope it's the make point, not the break. I'm hoping for the best."

No strangers to how nonprofit organizations work, fellow Seasons board members Brooke Creswell, the soon-to-be-retired music director for the YSO, and John Baule, executive director for the Yakima Valley Museum, remain optimistic that everything will work out for the performance hall.

Such ventures are fundamentally different than running a for-profit business, Baule said.

"If you're not familiar with nonprofits, they run in their own little weird way," he said.

Even the museum, at one point, was in a code violation and had to raise the money to make good with the city.

"Nonprofits," added Baule, "are great at pulling rabbits out of hats in the eleventh hour."

Strosahl admits that when The Seasons first opened, it was kind of like, "Hey, we have a barn, let's put on a show."

It's his family's dream to create a lasting legacy, to put Yakima on the musical map in a similar fashion that little Lenox, Mass., has become known around the world for its Tanglewood Music Center.

And it has made a strong start.

When it opened in October 2005, it did so to an enthusiastic and packed house that greeted the Bill Mays Trio. And despite little remodeling to make the venue feel less "churchy" -- to this day patrons still pile into pews and wedge their wine glasses into the slots where Bibles previously rested -- praise for the new music venue quickly spread.

Several months after The Seasons' debut, national award-winning jazz critic Doug Ramsey, who lives in Yakima, wrote this on his blog, www.artsjournal.com/rifftides:

"To many Rifftides readers, Yakima, Washington, may as well be on the far side of the moon, but the word is getting around in jazz and classical circles that a gig at The Seasons is something to be desired."

And The Seasons certainly aimed high when lining up musicians: Branford Marsalis, Delfeayo Marsalis, Taj Mahal, Karrin Allyson, Bill McGlaughlin, the Brubeck Brothers, Bill Mays and Imani Winds have played its small stage.

Jazz pianist Jessica Williams recorded an album there; alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón, who's visited the downtown performance hall a couple times, is a recent MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient; and rising blues star Shemekia Copeland and indie-folk singer Carrie Rodriguez, both recent National Public Radio features, played to enthusiastic crowds.

Plus, there are the concerts by the Yakima Symphony Chamber Orchestra -- which was able to come into existence because of The Seasons -- the Yakima Symphony Choir and numerous community events held in the hall.

Then, this past December, acclaimed contemporary composer Daron Hagen signed on as artistic director of The Seasons' signature event, it's Fall Side-By-Side Music Festival that includes concerts by top name jazz and classical musicians, a composers' workshop and other educational outreach events.

The Seasons, said Creswell, has achieved its goal of high quality programing. Unfortunately, finding the underwriting to support those big names is proving harder.

"This is a start-up operation," emphasized Creswell. "Any organization in the arts has to rely on philanthropy in large part. And it's difficult to tap into that philanthropic pool until you have a history of stability."

So what The Seasons needs to do now, is move from grand idea to a stable organization, then secure sources of funding, especially until the wine co-op is up and running.

"It's the endemic nature of any kind of arts organization," agreed Baule. "Your product is not inherently profit-making. There has to be a subsidy."

That, though, takes a while to build up. Longtime arts organizations such as the museum and Allied Arts of Yakima Valley have a cadre of underwriters, such as endowments, grants and membership and fundraising drives.

"It's a challenge of any organization, it's not unique to (The Seasons)," said Baule.

"We think three years is a long time," added Baule, "but three years goes by in a heartbeat."

Creswell predicts The Seasons will turn a corner in the next six months. He forecasts the 10-person board putting much-needed procedures in place, stabilizing staff -- The Seasons' most recent managing director resigned early last week -- resolving the capital expenditures issues and taking a practical look at Yakima's appetite for these niche artists.

If you book it, they will come. That's been the underlying premise of The Seasons since it first opened, but recently it's retooled the schedule. In the past, there were concerts every weekend, but now there are about three a month.

"(The Seasons) tried to put too much programing in the facility for the market to bear," said Creswell. "But what has gone in there has almost been uniformly high-quality. You have to find a balance."

And Strosahl acknowledges that Yakima was never meant to single-handedly support The Seasons. His hope is that The Seasons, and Yakima in general, will become the entertainment capitol of the Valley's growing wine industry.

"The next challenge is to make (the tourist market) aware," he said. "We know depending just on the local audience won't work."

Strosahl, and The Seasons' many supporters, continue to view all of these challenges as simply obstacles they can, with time, overcome. The foremost being getting those sprinklers approved.

"We have the underpinnings of a great organization," Strosahl said. "But we're still at an early level of development. If you look at something like Tanglewood, they had to earn their keep -- and so do we."

* Kim Nowacki can be reached at 577-7680 or knowacki@yakimaherald.com.