Earlier this week, Arts on Real's General Manager, Blake Yelavich, sent out the call: "With the value of property sky-rocketing in the East Side neighborhoods, it is increasingly difficult to meet the demands of leases and taxes desired by the property owners." Arts on Real needs to raise $7500 by the end of April or it will shutter its doors by the end of May. Needless to say, closing down isn't the company's first wish, so they're working to avoid that fate via donations and, one would assume, ticket sales for their current, well-received comedy Matt & Ben, starring local faves Kelley Estes and Breanna Stogner.

In a town that offers everything from solid, staid productions for the sort who like predictability in their theatre, to...quite the opposite...Arts on Real is more than a niche company. Five years ago, with its home troupe Naughty Austin at the helm, Arts on Real quickly asserted itself as a company that would take risks, frequently to hilarious and critically acclaimed results. Naughty Austin has been around since 1997, but having a theatre all one's own always makes for even bigger, even better productions, and they've delivered the goods over the years, from fan favorites Pageant and When Pigs Fly, to oddball hits such as Batboy, the Musical. In short, you always know you'll have fun when you head out for Arts on Real.

In addition to their own productions, the theatre has become a place to play for a wide variety of guest companies. Groups large and small have rented the space. Any theatre person in town will bemoan the lack of facilities in Austin. It'll be a shame if we lose any performance venue, particularly one as nice as Arts on Real.

In his recent comments about the production Colosseum Wrestling, the Austin American Statesman's Michael Barnes said it best: "What would we do without Arts on Real and Naughty Austin? Deprived of these twinned East Austin institutions, the camp-lite genre of theatrical entertainment — staged in actual theaters, at least — would go missing locally." What, indeed, would we do without them? Here's hoping it's a question that remains rhetorical.