Fresh Thoughts About MCT

The first theatre I ever worked in was Riverside Theatre in Vero Beach, Florida. It has since been expanded in many directions, but even in the early eighties it was a gem of a theatre. It has a nice big stage - not as big as some, but pretty durn big for a little place like Vero Beach - with wing space and fly space. It had a well-equipped shop, a green room big enough to rehearse in, big dressing rooms and an enclosed light booth with two follow spots. Sound was equally well provided for, with a booth of its own and microphone and speaker inputs and outputs strategically placed around the stage.

The second one made the first one look mighty good. In 1985, the Vero Beach Theatre Guild bought a church building and made it work as a theatre. The stage was about half the size of Riverside, with no wing space and no fly space. Until the spring of '86, the only way in or out of the stage area was a doorway into the audience. BUT - it had a big green room, dressing rooms and a shop. When we put on "Damn Yankees, with seventeen scenes and twenty seven cast members doing costume changes, we busted a hole through the wall stage left, and built a stairway down to the ground, where a big tent served as green room and dressing rooms. Since then, this theatre has also been expanded and improved.

Albuquerque Little Theatre is littler than the Vero Beach Theatre Guild theatre, with very little wing space and no fly space. But it has a nice big shop, a nice green room, dressing rooms and a big rehearsal space upstairs.

So now we come to Meadville Community Theatre. First thing that smacks you is the proscenium, seven feet six inches high. The thrust of stage in front of the proscenium is really all the stage you have to work with. Inside the arch it has zero wing space, zero fly space and no way to make anything onstage disappear unless it can go through a narrow doorway, down three steps to a sharp turn through a narrow hall to either the audience or the next set of stairs down to ground level where one can go outside through the door, or on the stage left side make a sharp left through another narrow doorway and down more steps to the tiny green room / dressing room / storage room. There is no rehearsal space and no shop. Any cutting or building takes place onstage or (if you're lucky enough to be working on a non-rainy / snowy day) outside. Need flats? Take the stairs down from the stage, go up the aisle to the rear of the house, go through the doors to the stairway about ten steps down to ground level, turn right, go through the double doors to a tiny room - once an office - flip through the flats in stock, pull one out, lay it over so it will fit through the office door, through the double doors, up the ten steps, through those doors, down the aisle and up the steps to the stage. Need lumber? Go down the stage left steps, turn left, go down to ground level and outside through the rain and / or snow to the "hole," a small basement entrance that requires you to bend double to enter and stoop over to walk through. Racks and racks of two by, one by and molding await the stout hearted souls who venture in.

Stout hearted souls are the stuff of Meadville Community Theatre. They feel blessed to have this place to call their own. The laundry list of inconveniences I mentioned are to them a badge of honor, for in spite of all of that, the show goes on!