It wasn’t easy for Sarah Azcarate to process what her eyes saw on Jan. 23, nearly two weeks after the Eaton fire started and blazed through the San Gabriel Valley Mountains and surrounding neighborhoods.

The city she has called home since 2020 and where she built Altadena Music Theatre, a nonprofit that aimed to enrich the lives of the community through musical theater, was gone. Ash, dust and debris stood where her rental home stood, and the same went for Charles S. Farnsworth Park, which has a small outdoor amphitheater where the theatre group performed productions such as “Hair” and “Girls and Boys.”

“Everything just crumbles,” said Azcarate, who is currently staying in Encinitas near San Diego as her family deals with the insurance company. “Even if it looks like something you can touch and hold, it just crumbles.”

The life she and her husband Oliver built along with their two young children was gone in an instant. With smoke and ash over their neighborhood, they left just before the evacuation order came, leaving the couple little to no time to pack up anything other than some essentials. Azcarate was hoping to find her wedding bands when she revisited the area.

“By the time we finally got up there, I realized there really is nothing much to discover,” she said. “All these sets we built, props, costumes, microphones, some equipment and everything we’ve accumulated over the last few years is just completely gone now.”

There was one thing still standing. The banner promoting Altadena Music Theatre’s production of “Hair” was still hanging on a fence outside her home.

It’s a telling portrait that could serve as inspiration and a reminder of how art can get us through even the darkest moments.

But Azcarate didn’t need an allegorical image to realize that. Whilst processing the loss of her neighborhood, she found hope in the people who supported and participated in Altadena Music Theatre.

“If I’ve learned anything through this, it’s the [material] stuff doesn’t matter to me as much anymore,” she said. “It’s painful in a lot of ways. There’s stuff that held a lot of meaning, but really it’s those connections we’ve made with the people that are keeping me sane right now. I wouldn’t be OK if I wasn’t feeling that love and support from all these people.”

Azcarate’s initial thought when she learned that her home was lost and the amphitheater damaged was one of despair: “I can’t imagine starting something like this over from the beginning again.”

Not only did community members rally to help her via GoFundMe donations, which surpassed $47,000 as of Jan. 29, but others who believe in her cause are doing their part to keep Altadena Music Theatre alive.

Hollywood Park, adjacent to SoFi Stadium, and theatrical production group For The Record will support the restoration of Altadena Music Theatre by donating proceeds from upcoming shows at the soon-to-open CineVita, the largest Belgian Spiegeltent in the world that will celebrate Los Angeles’s rich entertainment history with immersive productions that bring films and music to life. The new venue will open Feb. 13 with “Tarantino: Pulp Rock,” and Hollywood Park will also offer complimentary tickets to first responders during the show’s run.

“The amount of people that have come out to offer help and support because they believe in us is amazing, and they know how special the arts are in our lives and how important it is to keep going,” a tearful Azcarate said. “I’m really hopeful now and eager about the future and about us being able to perform together again and make these musicals.”

Getting back to a point where Altadena Music Theatre can stage a production is going to take time, but Azcarate wants to start by helping in other ways like hosting camps and workshops to help them cope with what was lost in the Eaton fire.

“I just want to bring them joy and bring them back together for that connection,” she said. “I think it would be really healing for them. That’s something we’re going to try to do together with the help from Hollywood Park and the CineVita group. I’m really excited about all of that, and I feel really grateful to them for allowing me to have that hope, that something good can come out of this.”

The image of the “Hair” banner still hanging on Azcarate’s fence is a sign that good can come out of it all, and that art always prevails, even as the world around it changes.