One of the premier venues for hosting underground music and popular events in the country is The Oakland Metropolitan Operahouse, a.k.a. The Metro. Under a hostile campaign by an unhappy neighbor, an uber-wealthy entrepreneur looking to open his own venue, and the venue is in danger of shutting down. Friends of the venue have launched a GoFundMe to save the theater.
The Metro has been a non-profit performing arts venue for music and theater in the Jack London Square area for over 16 years. It has provided a safe, supervised, legal space for outsider art, and for diverse organizations such as the Oakland Symphony, Oakland Youth Chorus, Oakland Opera Theater, New Style Motherlode, Tourettes Without Regrets, Hoodslam, Tankcrimes Records, Numbskull Productions, Shadowdance, and hundreds of other Oakland and international artists for years to come. Upcoming shows at the venue include Thou, False And Cloud Rat, Weedeater, Doom (UK), Ghoul, and Robb Flynn of Machine Head‘s upcoming Birthday Bash.
From the GoFundMe
The Oakland Metro Operahouse has been a non-profit performing arts venue for music and theater in the Jack London Square area for over 16 years. We will continue to provide a safe, supervised, legal space for outsider art, and for diverse organizations such as the Oakland Symphony, Oakland Youth Chorus, Oakland Opera Theater, New Style Motherlode, Tourettes without Regrets, Hoodslam, Tankcrimes, Numbskull Productions, Shadowdance and hundreds of other Oakland and international artists for years to come. We will not be silenced, squelched or gentrified by the rich, or by overzealous government officials.
This fall and winter, along with our regularly scheduled programing, we will again produce the tremendously successful California Deathfest, and are entering into a new relationship with UC Berkeley’s Cal Performances to bring Oakland some of the most astounding international performance artists in the world. The first in that series to be announced is: Spectrum Dance Theater (Co-created by director/choreographer Donald Byrd and actress/playwright Anna Deavere Smith) will perform a new dance-theater work entitled A Rap on Race, based on a book of the same name by James Baldwin and Margaret Mead.
It has been two and a half years since we were forced by skyrocketing rents to move the Oakland Metro a block and a half towards Broadway. We have continued, uninterrupted, to provide a community outlet for free expression, and to produce art and music events.
We still exist, but are struggling financially. We have been blocked by our neighbor, seemingly indefinitely, from transferring our non-profit liquor license. We have devised a workaround for this situation in the interim, but in the process we have gotten behind in rent. Our landlords have been tremendously supportive throughout this entire situation and we would like to pay them some back rent. We are seeking $25,000 to help offset the costs and loss of income that have resulted from our neighbors actions. The Oakland Metro Operahouse is a 501(c)(3) organization and all donations are tax deductible to the full extent of the law.