BPA’s annual fundraiser to offer fun and financial reality.

“The Art of BPA” will use hard data to convey a hard truth.

“It’s very, very expensive to produce art, and to create it,” said Bainbridge Performing Arts Managing Director Susan Sivitz.

As in the past, the organization’s annual fundraising gala, to be held next Friday, will offer a crowd-pleasing evening of theater and music.

This time, it’s on stage and in the round, with patrons getting an intimate sampling of performances from Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra members, BPA Theatre School students, and cast members from recent and upcoming mainstage productions.

And as attendees are enjoying their fine food and wine, a series of mounted frames will pointedly display “fun facts” – the actual dollar amounts required, say, to secure royalties for a play, or to costume the average musical.

It’s not intended to be a crass, downer ploy.

The point, Artistic Director Steven Fogell said, is to educate attendees and demystify the factors that go into creating high-quality programming, and to help patrons see the worth of their contributions.

“It’s all this information that we take for granted that we know that they don’t know,” he said.

The evening’s performances will fully demonstrate what BPA offers artistically, Fogell said, with pageantry, a master of ceremonies, and Teatro Zinzani-esque antics.

The youngest Theatre School students will sing a number from their latest production, “Winnie-the-Pooh,” while older students will preview this summer’s “Sweeney Todd.”

There will also be highlights from spring’s mainstage production of “Light in the Piazza.” Guest artists will present highlights from next season’s yet-to-be announced roster.

And BSO concertmaster and violinist Thomas Monk will perform a piece that Sivitz said “basically made everybody in the house weep” when he originally played it.

“I’m very easily moved by music, but I was a wreck after he played it last year. It was breathtakingly beautiful,” she said.

Sivitz said that BPA, like every nonprofit, “is suffering during this weird economy.” Corporate sponsorships have dwindled – a phenomenon occurring in Seattle theatrical outfits too, she said – and cuts from banked-on city funds are looming.

In response, BPA has slashed production budgets; made staff schedule adjustments; and reduced the number of freelance hires for services like set design and lighting, putting an added burden on in-house staffers.

It has also shifted some of its endowment funds, usually earmarked for facility and technical improvements, toward salaries.

It’s all about doing more with less, while not sacrificing the quality of BPA offerings or their production value.

“We’re trying to preserve our programming, because that’s what we are,” Sivitz said.

The arts are financially vulnerable even at the best of times, she added, and some argue that when a community is making choices about where to allot its money, basic human services should take precedence over cultural endeavors.

But Sivitz – who, as a member of the city’s Health, Housing and Human Services board, sits in both camps – stressed that it’s unproductive to pit different types of organizations against each other when it comes to money.

She instead takes a systemic view, in which the arts aren’t just ephemerally important but actual economic drivers.

BPA has zip code data from ticket sales indicating that a significant number of audience members come from Seattle and elsewhere off-island.

When they come to Bainbridge for a show, they eat in our restaurants and shop in our stores, sending tax dollars directly to the city. If the quality of BPA shows declined, they might stay home.

In addition, Sivitz said, “the arts on Bainbridge Island are your neighbors,” the people who drive the island economy from the inside.

Which makes it doubly important, in the face of external economic stresses, to try to pull together to keep local organizations like BPA afloat.

“That’s a message that has to be trumpeted from the rooftops,” she said.

For art’s sake

The ‘Art’ of BPA takes place from 6:30-9:30 p.m. March 20 onstage at Bainbridge Performing Arts.

Highlights will include an auction of artistic experiences; performances by members of the BPA Theatre School, the Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra, and mainstage productions; dinner “in the round”; and other cultural treats.

Tickets are $125 per person. For more information, see www.bainbridgeperformingarts.org.