Megan Wygant became the executive director of CLARA , the E . Claire Raley Studios for the Performing Arts , when the nonprofit opened in 2016 . The organization is housed in the 100-year-old former Fremont School in Midtown Sacramento . Wygant previously worked as an independent consultant for nonprofit organizations and as an assistant general manager for Emerson Stage at Emerson College in Boston . CLARA ’ s tenants include Alliance Française de Sacramento , Brazilian Center for Cultural Exchange of Sacramento , Capital Stage , McKeever School of Irish Dance , Sacramento Ballet , Sacramento Preparatory Music Academy , Seasons Coffee Roasters and Southside Unlimited . Comstock ’ s spoke to Wygant about how CLARA has supported its tenants and art education during the pandemic .
CLARA launched in April 2016 . What was that like ? The board had already rented out all the space in the building . … I got a lot of calls in those first two weeks — “ We ’ re looking for space .” And I was like , “ Well , we ’ re actually full .” It was very successful for us , but from the perspective of what else do we do , that was sort of the challenge of the first year or so , trying to really identify if we ’ re full , what else could we provide to the city .
It showed there was a need greater than supply ? There was a need here in Sacramento in particular . … You think about all the different kinds of space the performing arts need : administrative space , rehearsal space , performance space ; if you ’ re doing education outreach , you need classroom space . The physical plant costs of the performing arts , it ’ s one of the highest line items on the budget . I want to say ( it ’ s ) at least 40 percent of most theater companies ’ operating budget . … The performing arts , in particular , aren ’ t considered to be financially sustainable . If you want low ticket prices , but you also want to pay all of your artists a living wage , those two things don ’ t actually match . So a lot of arts organizations are really dependent on donations to keep going . As an administrator who believes in the arts , my passion ’ s always been how can you show the financial value that the arts give to the community ? And is there a way to kind of trade on that value for lowering the expenses of creating art ? And that ’ s exactly what CLARA does . …
CLARA is ( in ) a decommissioned school building owned by ( Sacramento City Unified School District ). They donated the building to us , and they said what we want in exchange is not money . We want arts education in our schools . … And then CLARA ’ s job is to sort of administrate that relationship and work with the tenants to provide that in-kind rent of arts education back into the school system . …
You put arts into a classroom , and performance goes up . And that ’ s true just across the board , no matter what the school is , no matter what the economic level is of the school . … You really notice it with students who are living in the poverty line , because there , those incremental changes make a difference . … They ’ re five times more likely to graduate from high school . … They ’ re twice as likely to graduate college . … We noticed students are more likely to come to school on days that our programs are in the class .
Can you tell me more about the partnership that made CLARA a reality ? We had this building donated by the school district , and the board of CLARA filled it with cultural tenants — we have eight cultural tenants in the building . Those tenants pay the cost of running the building , and that ’ s their dollar rent . That comes out to about a third of market value . And then the rest of the rent is paid in-kind back to the school district in the form of arts education . … All of our tenants do some form of afterschool and evening classes for either adults or children that helps stabilize the nonprofit income . …
We now create some of our own programming , ( CLARA Classroom , a digital learning platform employing independent artist teachers from the community ), and those programs are available ( for a cost at other school districts ) throughout Sacramento County .
How many of the tenants have been retained over the last year during the pandemic ? What accommodations did CLARA make ? Nobody has moved out . And , at this point , all tenants are still paying rent . … We ’ ve been able to drop rent by 25 percent . As mentioned , the rent paid by the tenants of the building are the expenses of the building . We ’ re still a
One of the things that has been so interesting about the pandemic is … seeing the way in which our tenants have risen to the challenge .
April 2021 | comstocksmag . com 27