Student Stories: Quincy Jones Theatre Disrepair
By Garfield sophomore Rafael Brewer

Rainy Day Recess, Episode 37 - May 20, 2025

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Christie Robertson: Hi. Welcome to Rainy Day Recess, where we study and discuss Seattle Public Schools. This is Christie Robertson, and today I wanna introduce you to Raphael Brewer, a sophomore at Garfield High School. Rafi brought to our attention the state of disrepair at the Quincy Jones Performance Space that is used by the high school, by surrounding schools, and the community. He especially wanted to highlight his quest to get answers from Seattle Public Schools about how repairs are funded for basics like light switches and the broken lightboard that is as old as the theater itself. We are handing this story over to Rafi to tell, so here he is.

Rafael Brewer: Hello, my name is Rafael Brewer and I'm a sophomore at Garfield High School in Seattle, here to do my first story for Rainy Day Recess.

You may recognize me from season two, episode 10 of Seattle Hall Pass, where I talked about my experience relating to school safety, specifically at Garfield. I'm back today to share another story from my school, this time relating to our theater department.

My theater is super important to me, my school and our community, but it is falling in a state of disrepair. This is my story about the Quincy Jones Auditorium.

Let me start with some background on Garfield and Quincy Jones.

Background

Rafael Brewer: Garfield has a rich history as a school and community space in the central district. The school opened in 1923 and is located at 23rd Ave and Jefferson. According to the State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Garfield has around 1500 students, and it is an incredibly diverse school with 34.7% of students being white, 29.6% black, 12.6% multiracial, 11.7% Asian and 10% Hispanic or Latino.

The school has produced many famous alumni, including Jimi Hendrix, Mayor Bruce Harrell, and perhaps most notably, the late great Quincy Jones. Jones, one of the most famous jazz musicians and producers of all time, had an outsized effect on his alma mater. Even after graduating and becoming famous, he continued to stay engaged with his school. In fact, he has an entire building named after him.

The Quincy Jones Performing Arts Center holds the school's theater and auditorium, the gymnasium, locker rooms, a small theater black box, and some classrooms and offices. The building opened in 2008 and can be seen prominently as you approach the school.

Personal Experience

Rafael Brewer: I know the Quincy Jones best as a theater space and performing arts center, but it's so much more. It's a true gathering space. I’ve spent at least a hundred hours there over the past 18 months or so since I started high school at Garfield.

I first entered the Arts Center when I found out about tech theater at the Club Fair in September, my freshman year. And it was then that I got involved in lighting for the spring musical, "Into the Woods." Since then, I've been involved in every production, and it's a huge part of what I love about high school. Working together with the cast and crew of every production makes me feel like part of a team. And it's amazing when a show comes together and we can see how much joy our hard work brings to the community.

To be honest, I've become a bit desensitized to how awesome working in the theater is. I convinced one of my friends to go to our spring musical last year, which is nearly three hours long. It's a great show, great score, and we had an amazing cast, including a lot of talented seniors. My friend was a bit apprehensive at first. He was used to middle school plays and his expectations were pretty low. But after a lot of nagging, I saw him and his family there one night, and afterwards he told me he loved the show. Our theater program is so good, and we are lucky to have such an amazing space to tell our stories in.

Luna interview

Rafael Brewer: And I'm not the only one who feels this way. I interviewed my friend and fellow theater worker Luna Manzin. And here she is talking about her experience with Garfield Theater.

Luna Manzin: My name is Luna Manzin and I'm a sophomore in high school. 

Rafael Brewer: What do you like about doing theater at Garfield? 

Luna Manzin: I like the people. But also it just.. it's a really fun activity. Just like being able to like, build things. It helps you learn how to use tools. It helps you learn how to like, measure things correctly and design things. It’s also helped me get better at math. And then that's just like the technical side of theater. And then they like the entire acting part. Like it helps you with confidence. And then you get to learn how to sing better. Which is a skill that a lot of people need to learn. Not naming names, Raphael Brewer. Anyway. But also it's a great place to meet people.

Rafael Brewer: What are your observations about the theater space in the Quincy Jones Auditorium? 

Luna Manzin: It definitely needs to be updated. We don't have stereo for our sound system. All of the lights are atrociously old, and we're just like barely hanging on. It's just... it feels like we're not cared about. But we can still do stuff. It still feels, like, pretty grand. 

Rafael Brewer: Yeah. 

Luna Manzin: Yeah.

Rafael Brewer: Why do you think this space and the programs that run in it are important? 

Luna Manzin: When I came here for the first time, it really inspired me into doing theater. And it's really important that kids have the outlet to do stuff that they enjoy. And if they're unable to do that kind of thing, then they just aren't gonna be happy. I genuinely think that this is a necessary part of a school environment, because it gives people a place to be themselves. And it gives them a place to go off and continue being themselves. While also pretending to be other people, but you know. That's about it. Yeah. Yeah. 

Rafael Brewer: Alright, thank you. 

Luna Manzin: Is that it? 

Rafael Brewer: Yep, that's it. 

Luna Manzin: Okay. Thank you.

Other uses of the Quincy Jones

Rafael Brewer: The theater is also used in a wide variety of other ways. It hosts our plays and musicals, orchestra and jazz concerts, assemblies and summits. It also hosts events for other schools in the district, including graduation ceremonies for Nova High School and Middle College High School. But the Quincy Jones building isn't just the theater. The gym is primarily used for assemblies, PE, and sports games and practices both by Garfield teams and by local youth teams. 

During big community events such as the MLK Day march, the Quincy Jones can be used by the community as a gathering and rallying space. It can also be rented out to local organizations. A side note, the district receives the money paid by organizations renting the space out, but my theater teacher coordinates all the rentals, and that money doesn't come back to the theater, it stays with the district downtown.

I sat down with my theater teacher, Ms. Gress, to talk about how she uses the theater and generally all aspects of Garfield Theater.

Interview w/ Ms Gress

Natalie Cress: My name is Natalie Gress, I use she/her pronouns, and I'm the theater teacher here at Garfield High School. My job responsibilities include teaching performing arts classes like Beginning Theater, Play Production, and Musical Production. In addition to that, I also am a CTE teacher, and I offer courses like Tech Theater, which includes shop work, lighting, sound, and scenic design, as well as a costume design course and playwriting classes.

Our program produces a fall play, a winter children's play, and a spring musical. And we invite the community as well as local and neighboring elementary schools to come see our productions. Something else that's really cool about our program is that we do student-directed one-acts throughout the whole year. 

One of the first things I noticed when I student taught at Garfield High School was how much the students got to control the creative vision of the piece and have their own agency towards making creative decisions and building the production.

Rafael Brewer: What's the importance of access to theater for Garfield students?

Natalie Cress: Theater, beyond producing plays and musicals, is a space for students are practicing public speaking and learning how to use their voice. And it is one of the only classes that ends with a gift that can be handed back out to the community.

I think students should have access to theater because it's a place that allows people to explore their identity and befriend others and learn more about the world. Theater is one of many outlets that teaches us empathy and helps us look at the world through someone else's eyes.

I also note how many students come into our program that have grown up here in Seattle, and they remember the first show that they saw, because they came and they saw it at Garfield High School, and that was maybe their third or fourth grade year in elementary school. We’re providing a really awesome opportunity for students to go on a field trip that is educational and meaningful and gives them a little preview into what they could do someday. And we've been trying to spread that throughout the other Seattle Public Schools so that every high school can offer a program like that to their elementary and middle school feeder programs.

We're hoping to make these spaces improved and up to the quality that our students deserve. 

Rafael Brewer: Could you talk more about the lighting situation in the theater? 

Natalie Cress: The past two years, our overhead safety and work lights haven't been working from a switch on the wall. In order to get overhead lighting on the stage and on areas of the space where work needs to happen or students might go for class requires going into a breaker room and manually touching all the switches to turn on overhead light. That has been the system for the past two years in order to hold class on stage. 

This impacts more than me. If I have guests in the space, whether that's custodians or music teachers or outside groups, someone needs to know where to go to get into this locked back room that says "personalized, authorized access only, high voltage, danger, keep out." They need to know how to safely move in there and turn on the lighting equipment just in order to use the space safely.

Rafael Brewer: Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Theater Condition

Rafael Brewer: The Quincy Jones is not in the condition it once was back when it opened nearly 16 years ago. What was state-of-the-art back then is still really great now, but there has barely been any maintenance and upgrades since, especially in the auditorium.

I took Christie Robertson from Rainy Day recess on a tour of our facilities.

The theater's lighting system was installed with a company called Strand Lighting. They installed all the stage lights, the dimmers and equipment that controlled them, as well as those regular light switches around the auditorium that controlled the more normal fixtures, such as house lights, work lights, and all the backstage lights.

They also provided us with our lightboard, the piece of technology that controls all the stage lights and the platform where we design and program the lighting for our shows. Unfortunately, Strand Lighting has since gone out of business, and our current system is failing.

Rafael Brewer [in the theater]: Everything with blue tape on it is broken. Everything has blue tape. Except for I think two over there. And these lights are a hodge-podge. Professional theaters buy from one supplier. They get all of their lights from one brand or two brands. We have four or five brands of lights in here. Each with an uneven mix. Each different models, different fitting, they need different bulbs. It’s just a mess, because we just ask local theaters for extra lights that they have and take that. We don’t buy anything obviously. We don’t have money for that. So, it just becomes...

Rafael Brewer: One of the biggest problems is that the lightboard is barely working. It runs on Windows XP and one side has been completely broken since it was installed. I fear that any day now it could completely fail leaving us with no alternative to control the lights.

But perhaps the bigger issue are the regular lights switches themselves. Nearly every switch in the theater was installed by Strand, and everything is all a part of their proprietary system. And their system, without any maintenance in the past 16 years, has failed.

What this has meant for Garfield is that 90% of the light switches do not work. Instead, staff and students have to go into the high voltage breaker room to turn on and off classroom lights. Besides the fact that this wastes precious class time, this is dangerous. Again, trained students have to go in the high voltage breaker room multiple times a day to turn on the lights. And this has been going on for two years.

Christie Robertson [in the theater]: This is the high voltage room?

Rafael Brewer [in the theater]: The high voltage room. This is where we have to control the lights. In front of me is a green panel with motherboard switches directly connected to it. We have a key down here.  It's like the breaker room in your house. 

Budget problems

Rafael Brewer: We have emailed and talked to the district since the fall of 2023. And ever since these problems first began, they have been dragging their feet. We never get a clear answer. At one point, facilities claimed that Garfield should pay for the repairs because they considered it to be specialized theatrical equipment, not realizing that these lights are the equivalent of classroom overhead fluorescent lights.

Similar to the gymnasium, people often forget that the theater is also a classroom. After years of district budget deficits, the amount of unrestricted funds sent to schools has also gotten smaller and smaller. There just isn't enough wiggle room in Garfield's budget to pay for repairs like this. 

One thing that confuses me is that, although the district is in a nearly $100 million budget deficit, capital money isn't usually the issue. There are no restrictions on the funds the district can raise through capital levies and Seattle voters have always amply funded the backs and BTA capital levies. We spoke to Kellie LaRue, a public education advocate and systems engineer who's been tracking SPS processes like this for years. She explained that BEX and BTA levies can only be used for large projects and that the kind of maintenance we're talking about falls under MSOC.

Legislature

Rafael Brewer: If you've been following our conversation about school funding in the legislative session, you've probably heard of MSOC. It stands for materials, supplies and operating costs, and it's one of the areas that is most drastically underfunded by the state and one of the areas that is most seriously impacted by inflation.

For the 2024-25 school year, SPS had a more than $13 million gap between what it had to spend on MSOC and what the state provided. This is part of why I decided to testify before a legislative committee for the first time. The House Appropriations Committee was having a hearing about Senate Bill 5192, A bill to increase how much districts get for MSOC. Here's my testimony.

Rafael Brewer: Hello, Chair Ormsby, Vice Chair Gregerson and members of Appropriations. My name is Raphael Brewer, Garfield High School student in Seattle.

Please pass Senate Bill 5192 out of Appropriations. MSOC is underfunded by $300 per student, and as the lighting director of Garfield's tech theater program, I witness firsthand the impacts of this. Our lightboard is older than me, it runs on Windows XP, and one side has been completely broken for nearly a decade. I fear any day it will completely break, leaving us unable to use the auditorium at all.

The light switches are also broken. So in order to turn on and off the lights, a student must go directly to the breaker panel in the high voltage room. 

We've been trying to fix these issues for years, but there just isn't enough money, and there won't be until you probably fund MSOC. Our auditorium is not only used for our shows, rehearsals, concerts, school-wide assemblies and summits, but also by other nearby schools, and even some community events.

I hope you realize that funding our schools is not just providing the basics to support our students' learning, but also reinvesting in local communities. Please fund MSOC. These severe shortfalls impact all of Washington's 295 districts in 1.1 million students. Thank you. 

The district

Rafael Brewer: While I know that the legislature is part of the problem, I'm still frustrated by our interactions with the district. We're never able to get a straight answer about what is going on and what is the real reason that our needs are so neglected. The interactions are maddening. And from the perspective of those of us working in the theater, it really feels like the district doesn't care.

I wish I understood what was going on, but all I can tell you is my personal experience and the excuses they have told my theater teacher. The system isn't supported or clear for educators, and teachers are often passed back and forth between the powers-that-be for a clear answer. It's a game of hot potato. There isn't a person designated to help fix these problems or answer them.

It is really not my place to ask high level district employees why this process has been so slow. I don't even know them. If you are more familiar with the inner workings of the district and can have any answers for me about why things are this way, I would love to hear from you just so I can understand.

Conclusion

Garfield is a great school and I'm really happy to be a Bulldog. It isn't perfect. No. And gun violence is a real issue that the school district and frankly the nation are struggling to solve. But it is a diverse school, and there are lots of athletic and extracurricular activities that I can push myself in, including our wonderful performing arts and world class music programs.

What I can't stand is inefficient district bureaucracy. I'm sure there are lots of good people at the district office. In fact, I've met some of them. And I understand the government is slow and that this is a big district. But taking years to properly fund a building that has not been maintained in over a decade is still mind-boggling to me.

I know that this story doesn't really have a happy ending. It is playing out every day I come to school and every time someone visits our auditorium. But I hope this provides the community with a view of what our schools actually look like from a student with boots on the ground. 

A special thanks to my theater teacher, Natalie Gress, for helping with this project and agreeing to be interviewed. Thanks to Luna for being interviewed as well. Thank you for listening. 

Christie Robertson: That was Garfield sophomore Rafael Brewer, for Rainy Day Recess. And this is Christie Robertson. 

 You can get tickets now for Garfield's Spring musical Footloose gstage.booktix.com. Rafi will be lighting the stage.

You can get our show notes and transcripts at our website, rainydayrecess.org. If you would like to get in touch with Rafi, you can email hello@rainydayrecess.org, and I will get your message to him.

Stay curious, stay cozy, and thanks for listening to Rainy Day Recess.