On Friday, April 12, a city sewer line, clogged with debris, diverted 4,000 gallons of raw sewage into our basement. The main floor of the theatre has been cleaned and sanitized and is safe to enter but the basement is still closed. It will be a few weeks before it will be cleaned, sanitized and safe to enter and much longer before it’s rebuilt. It has now been almost completely cleared of all items and the bottom two feet of all the walls have been removed. It’s nearly an empty shell, with all props and costumes and other things either thrown away or in storage with the cleaning company.
We are still cautiously optimistic that insurance and the city will bring us back to where we were. We hope to come back even better than before.
Chris Verrill, our executive director, held a public meeting to discuss raising money to repurpose our basement to include a classroom for TheatriKids as well as a small black box theater/rehearsal space. We’re recruiting skilled construction professionals to help us develop a plan and undertake this project. We’re exploring offsite storage for our costumes and props and set pieces. We have strong leads on donated temporary spaces, but are still very much looking for donated permanent spaces.
We have a variety of fundraising efforts underway: through our website, Facebook, GoFundMe, checks are arriving, The Peaks and The Orpheum are holding a breakfast fundraiser.
So far, we have about $45,000 toward our $75,000 goal. With your help, we’ll get there!
Building closed during clean up and removal of all items in the basement 
Volunteers meet to discuss our future 
Hallway to the dressing rooms 
Hallway 5/31/19 
Green room 
Green room 5/31/19 
Men’s dressing room 
Men’s dressing room 5/31/19 
Area where furniture was stored 5/31/19
Assuming the city allows us to smartly reassign insurance dollars, and depending on how our fundraising is going, we should be able to turn this stinky mess into a good thing. Thank you for your support and we hope you’ll consider a contribution to this effort!