Arts Garage seeks broader range, appeal

Arts hub leadership wants to expand on venue’s best assets.

DELRAY BEACH — The Arts Garage is tucked on the first floor of the four-story parking garage at Delray’s Old School Square in a warehouse-style space where you can hear the cars humming above on quiet mornings.

It’s known for its low-key jazz and blues concerts with cabaret seating and client base typically older than 40.

But after years of apparent struggle, the artistic hub sought new leadership, new programming and a new overall purpose to expand its demographics and reputation.

“Our goal is to build around what we know is working,” said Marjorie Waldo, hired to head the nonprofit Arts Garage in October.

The jazz and blues concer ts and theater performances that attract regulars will continue, but new programs will supplement Arts Garage’s standing as a cultural hub.

S p o k e n - wo r d p o e t r y, club nights with a D J, performances of comedy and up-and-coming bands are a mo n g t h e i d e a s b e i n g floated for this year’s programming.

They aim to host a minimum of three events or performances per week, whereas in the past it’s varied, Waldo said.

“Thi s pl a c e shoul d b e vibrant and alive every day,” she said.

That means catering performances at the theater to communities they historically haven’t targeted, such as lower-income youth, retirees with daytime activities and millennials, with expanded music genres at its theater, which seats 168, and 1-year-old Black Box, a smaller theater with row seating.

The Garage also created an art gallery in its lobby, which as of March will feature pieces from rising artists who live or work in Delray Beach.

I n D e c e m b e r, i t w a s announced that the Arts Garage canceled the remainder of its sixth theater season amid financial woes.

“It became obvious that o u r t h e a t e r s e a s o n h a d experienced some significant losses in the first two months,” Waldo said, without detailing the nonprofit’s money struggles.

Leaders within the city, which leases the space to the Arts Garage, complained there was a lack of financial transparency at the Arts Garage before approving its five-year lease in November.

To return to secure financial standing, Waldo said the Arts Garage is raising money through a program called “Band of Angels,” which seeks $10,000 donations from 30 individuals or businesses.

The changes to programming may seem jarring for longtime clientele, Waldo said, but the expansion helps better meet an important part of the nonprofit’s mission statement: art for everyone.

“It’s an alternative space, it’s exactly what it says in the name — a garage,” Waldo said. “We’re not trying to be Old School Square, we’re not trying to be the Kravis Center, or any other performing arts center. We’re just trying to be the Arts Garage.”