Hi Linda, we are vacationing in Maine during the week of July 14th, so I hope to attend "Into the Woods" at your theatre! 

Linda, thanks for the tour of your theatre, it was very cool!

And to everyone else out there in "theatre-land":  I recommend you drop in on this little community theatre if you ever find yourself travelling near Standish, Maine. 

The place is incredible!  The theatre is built inside an antique wooden 3-story high school!  The look and feel of the old building really sets the stage for an interesting little "found space" for actors.  They created a proscenium stage with stadium seating inside the old gymasium, which is down in the basement.   The giant classrooms upstairs are used for their green room, costume shop, black box rehearsal space, and dance room.   The "lobby" has high windows and is furnished with lots of antique chairs - awaiting the next period play to appear in. 

The buiding must be at least 100 years old, with interesting wooden door frames...and amazing pressed tin ceilings!  I bet every artsy-fartsy coffee shop in America would kill for all the cool pressed tin ceilings found throughout this school building!  And the height of the ceilings must be about 12 or 14 feet!  One room still had a 30' long chalkboard.  The floors have creeky wide planks of hardwood.  Lots of character! This entire building would make a great location for a walking murder mystery dinner theatre production!

Anyway, by the luck of Murphy's Law of Theatre, after travelling to Maine from North Carolina, I did not get to see Linda's production of "Into the Woods" after all!   Friday night the village of Standish was plastered by a violent and deadly thunderstorm with 80 mile an hour winds.  We saw a giant barn that had collapsed and lots of tree limbs on top of cars.  The power to the region was knocked out at 5:00 pm...and she had a 7:30 curtain!  

It was rough.  But she was nice enough to give me, and my wife and baby Jack, a tour of the entire facility by flashlight!!!  That made the place seem even more interesting!  The afternoon was very exciting, as the actors arrived one by one to the darkened theatre, each with stories of dodging downed power lines and such.  

I was not able to see the play, but what I saw of the set, (in the dark), was very creative and imaginative!   They had a fragmentary forest made of cut-away flats that were very well designed and painted.  And there were two revolving wagons with different scenes on each side.  These used 2-dimensional and 3-D elements to save space.  For example, the seat of a small chair was attached to a flat, and the remainder of the chair was painted on to match. 

Their coolest idea was to make ingenious use of an existing doorway in the wall of the old gymnasium.  For some reason, lost to history, there is an old doorway floating on the second floor wall of the gym!  So they designed a tall castle turret next to the proscenium arch.  That way, the actresses could enter directly into the top of the turret through this old door, without having to climb a ladder. 

It's a shame that this theatre was vandalized.  Because this troup was already putting on plays with some antiquated lighting and sound gear in the first place.  I hope some of you other theatre directors across the country can do what you can to send them support in some way.

What they really need is a new sound mixer and a new dimmer board...both of which were damaged when vandals through them off the booth platform.  However, since these systems will need all kinds of matching cables, modules and distribution, then rather than "hand-me-down" items, maybe cash donations would be the best way to go on these. 

Linda, thanks again for giving us a backstage tour, especially during such a chaotic afternoon!  We camp in Maine every Summer, so I'll start squirrelling away some cool tech gear for our next trip!   And hopefully the weather will allow me to actually see one your productions next time...

Break a leg, Dana

Hello Linda!  It's been two years!   Are you still on this forum?  How is the Schoolhouse Theatre going since that vandalism?

Edited by Mr. Lowell - 8/30/10 at 4:59pm