SACRAMENTO, CA – The State Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee today passed a bill by Senator Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) that will create a critical funding infrastructure to help small nonprofit performing arts companies continue to be an important social justice vehicle for marginalized voices.

Senate Bill 805 bill will create a funding program that will administer grants based on the size of company (i.e. smaller companies get larger grants) to help small theaters comply with AB 5. There will be a maximum revenue cap for eligible organizations. This funding will apply to all performing arts industry, including theaters, operas, and symphonies. It will also create a low-cost payroll services to nonprofit performing arts organizations.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for small theaters,” Senator Rubio said. “I grew up in Downtown Los Angeles at a time when you couldn’t escape drugs, gangs or violence.  Everyone you knew one way or another got pulled in. Luckily, I was a very creative child and the arts became my escape. I was able to put my energy and creativity to work in positive ways. I spent seven years performing and volunteering in small theaters and saw the transformative work these of our community produce. So I want to thank the Committee for passing SB 805. This is about providing equity and protecting emerging voices and artists from marginalized communities.”

Dolores Huerta, labor rights icon, co-founder of the United Farm Workers and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation has also expressed her support for SB 805: “In this critical time in our country, community theaters are desperately needed to enlighten, educate and motivate people to engage in social change. What is at stake is not an industry per se, but the vehicle of the voiceless, the downtrodden have to bring about change in the consciousness of the public at large. Not to mention, they represent the only access children in disadvantaged communities have compared to their more affluent counterparts. SB 805 provides a solution to help create and preserve opportunities for emerging artists, performers and people in the performing arts sector - particularly workers from marginalized communities. For all these reasons, I enthusiastically support SB 805 (Rubio), 'Save The Performing Arts Act of 2021."

Josefina Lopez, Award-Winning Playwright who wrote “Real Women Have Curves” and founding Artistic Director of Casa 0101 in Boyle Heights in Los Angeles commented: “I started my own small theater so that I could produce my plays and empower my community to learn to write plays and tell our stories. CASA 0101 has been my way of making my community visible and heard. It has also been my way of creating community so we could heal some of the trauma in Boyle Heights and also to give a voice to the wounds our community has carried by being left out of the history books and neglected economically and in other social ways. Small theaters are the only way marginalized communities get their stories told. If you are not a white male, small theaters allow for dreams to come true; they allow us to be the protagonists of our stories so we can see ourselves as the powerful people that we truly are.”  

SB 805 will next be heard in State Senate Appropriations. 

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Media contact: Edward Barrera, edward.barrera@sen.ca.gov