A sprinkler alarm at The Granada Theatre in downtown Santa Barbara sent a city fire engine crew to the century-old building on the afternoon of January 25. There was no fire, but firefighters found the stage awash in water after rigging onstage apparently broke and boomeranged into a number of sprinklers overhead.
The water damage to the stage and its various moving parts and systems was due to human error, theater management said on Tuesday. They had called consultants and specialized vendors to evaluate the damage, whose best estimate was that the repairs could take until the end of February to complete.
A number of performances have been canceled or rescheduled, including the performance by Les Ballets Trockadero for January 25 that had to be canceled. The all-male ballet company was being brought by UC Santa Barbara Arts & Lectures, which was working to relocate its lineup. José Límon Dance moved to Campbell Hall, and Renée Fleming moved one block up the street to the Arlington Theatre. More recently, the live taping of NPR’s popular Mountain Stage with Kathy Mattea on February 4 was also moved to the Arlington.
A&L spokesperson Charles Donelan said they were “bearing up with their good friends at the Granada,” where A&L hoped to be staging performances again soon. He noted that tickets were still available for the shows that have moved to the Arlington, and that A&L’s ticket office has been working “around the clock to get everyone into a comparable seat.”
The Granada stated it was busy “working with our resident companies and outside presenters to either reschedule shows or announce alternate venues.” The theater was in the process of updating the Granada website — granadasb.org — to reflect the ongoing changes to its February schedule.
The opulent theater, which anchors the arts district downtown, turns 100 years old this April. It operated as a movie palace and live theater into the 1980s and was completely renovated between 2003 and 2008, with the live theater on the ground floor, five floors of individual condominiums — one of which holds theater management — and two penthouses on the upper floors.
