Tear down my garage and build a 12 seat theatre

The long iron pipes that will support the stage curtains are now in place. Installation was perhaps a bit tricky but far from impossible. I needed a spare hand or two at a could junctures but it’s all done now.

I’ve also decided to move an old foot pump organ I have out to the barn to use for the music. It’s just another thing to add ambience while not using any electricity.

Next step is to secure the curtains to the pole and to start to hem them to the new length.

I went to the local Habitat for Humanity “Re-Store” last Saturday and low and behold, I found two lengths of iron pipe that are perfect for the curtains. OK maybe not exactly perfect because only one end of them is threaded. But I hope I can have that done at a hardware.

And I’ve been so encouraged that I’ve started thinking about the next real problem, which is that there is no electricity in the barn. Alternative lighting is what I’m looking at. Candles are totally out of the question but I’m thinking of those “maglite” flashlights. I sketched out a candleabra of sorts to be made out of PVC pipe. I like the idea of having all the lighting be actor-held, like the ghost-story-around-the-campfire effect. What this kind of lighting would also allow is that the plays produced could tour to really remote locations, like tents pitched in the middle of the woods.

Has ANYONE heard of anything even vaguely similar to this hare-brained stunt? Yes, I know the liabilities of dead batteries plus the nascent hilarity of trusting something THAT important to actors (just joking! just joking!!) Ideas?

What’s done or nearly done:

Paint doors—- Stained a lovely brown color

Hang doors—- In process

Paint exterior—- Stained a great barn red, with brown trim

Still to come:

Electricity

Big party :)

The doors were hung today, well, mostly. The doors have been a bit tricky because we didn’t want to go with garage doors because they would make the place look too much like a garage and also a garage door would roll up and hit lights if we hung them from a grid on the ceiling. So we went with three nice wooden doors that hang from a track and open like the folding doors on closets. We’ve got a really good finish carpenter (no, not a carpenter from Finland) for the job but it’s been difficult to schedule his time in between bigger projects. Today when I came home from work though the doors are at least in place. Yeah!

Almost equally fantastic is that I came across two theatre curtains, navy blue, 14’ x 14’ heavy velvet. They only smell a little which I’m totally sure (well, mostly sure) will dissipate. I spread them out on the lawn one nice sunny day and I think that did them a LOT of good. I believe I have figured out a way to hang them that they can be pulled entirely out of the way when the theatre is being used as a barn.

Next step, build the stage!

A close friend of mine ALMOST has me convinced that I should not use the fantastic new structure as a theatre but rather as microbrewery. We both brew beer already for personal consumption so the idea isn’t, well, perhaps as strange as it might appear. I imagine there are oh so many zoning and financial matters to consider before converting a backyard building to a brewery. Not to mention the mere fact that I wouldn’t have a 12-seat theatre.

Plus, didn’t some sit-com feature a garage-based brewery about a decade back? I don’t mind my life imitating art, but I’d prefer something a bit more profound than TV comedy!

The structure is up and it looks wonderful. The next step is to get some kind of sealant or stain on the wood so it stays looking wonderful. We got bids on the job and we’re going with the contractor who “felt” like the best fit. He happened to be pretty reasonable as well but it’s as important to us that the job is done by someone who isn’t a jerk.

Still pending:

Paint doors
Hang doors
Paint exterior
Electricity

Big party :)

Wouldn’t it just sound COOL if it was a “Thirteen Seat Theatre?” Maybe it sounds too creepy but I like the sounds of the long “e’s” and the “r’s” and the “th’s.” Maybe I’ll just go with the creepy aspect and have performances only in October when people like to be scared. I’m already hoping to do material that is edgy and weird, perhaps I could do dramatic depictions of people’s dreams and nightmares. Sort of like the animations of the Bros Quay but life-sized and live on stage.

All of this is in the hypothetical because it is taking SO DARNED LONG to finish up the mere structure of the place. It passed its final inspection this week which is a huge milestone but there’s still a blue tarp where the doors will be because they need to be painted before they can be hung and it’s still too cold to paint here. Not to mention that the barn/garage has now become “home” for various pieces of vagrant oddities that I’ve collected from various places.

Still…. I…. must…. keep…. hope…. a….live…..

Arrrggghhhhh

The structure is mostly complete—I’m knocking off 1% because the door are back-ordered and another 1% because the exterior cedar (which looks FANTASTIC!!!) needs to be sealed or stained or protected somehow. And then I’m not counting at ALL the fact that we still need to get electricity to the thing, or hang lights or build a stage, let alone hide any of the stuff from the old barn that’s strewn across the yard…

But I worked for about an hour and a half out there just now, piece by piece reclaiming the yard. There’s a big pile of cutoff lumber that would be great in a wood-burning stove. Mib7 and I stowed the tomato cages in the upper floor of the barn along with a half dozen big bags of leaves which we’ll use for mulch next year. We moved our big “CompostTumbler” and started to stack up the bricks that used to edge the beds before the big tractor came an disrupted everything.

And then there’s the real “theatre” parts. I’ve been sketching a clownish, commedia-like character who I’ve nicknamed “Probosco” due to the prominence of his nasal appendage and his delight in sticking it into other people’s business. (Though both aspects are pretty common for clowns.) He’ll be a recurring character but the first piece I’m setting him in I’m titling “Untouched by Human Hands.” I’m thinking that the pieces themselves might have to be relatively short to be in keeping with the scale of the venue…perhaps.

So, technically speaking in terms of accomplishing this goal: 1) the garage is torn down, 2) a structure is mostly built that could hold roughly 12 folding chairs but 3) that structure is not yet a “theatre” because nothing really theatrical has happen in it. Maybe by Spring?