Archive: Arts & Entertainment

One of Ithaca's premier live theaters will open the doors to its new, spacious building for the first time next Wednesday, September 1st.  The move has been a long time in coming, and while the new space offers amenities back stage and in the front of house alike, the design of the new theater reflects the mission and appeal of the old Clinton House space.  That 'in your face' focus on material and performance and the improved version of the old thrust stage with its three-sided auditorium make it clear that while the Kitchen Theatre Company may have moved out of the kitchenette, they are still the Kitchen.

"I think our audience will be excited at what has not changed in terms of intimacy," says Managing Director Stephen Nunley.  "And also excited about what has changed that has enhanced what we thought the theater was about."



Only a week before opening workmen were busy finishing the inside and outside of the building.  There were signs that the theater was preparing to open as well, with portable desks and computers set up in the lobby so subscribers could stop by to pick up their tickets, and the sounds of rehearsal melding with that of power tools and hammering.  The payoff will be next Wednesday when the first audience comes to see the preview of Noel Coward's 'Private Lives.'

The actors didn't get into the space until Tuesday, and there were a lot of unknowns.  Artistic Director Rachel  Lampert worried about acoustics, the look and feel of the new space, and all the things that affect an audience experience consciously or subliminally.

"I had to be in New York Tuesday, running auditions for the next play," she says.  "During the day Margaret Perry, the director, called me and said, 'The questions you had, like how are we going to hear the actors, how is it going to look in the space...' She said, 'You can hear the actors beautifully.  It really looks good in the space...'  There are so many firsts right now."

Wednesday's audience will experience them first hand.  They will surely notice that the new theater doesn't have the closed in, claustrophobic feeling the old one did.  That, in part, is because of new theater seats, the height of the new theater is about twice that of the old, partly because of more implied space -- the light booth and catwalks, the fact that the sets no longer have to be plastered against the wall -- and partly because the blue and gray design is just plain friendly and welcoming. 

Marmoleum floors, the amount of water used in toilets, the HVAC system, and energy efficient lighting, all contribute to the building's LEED certification for green building.  Sight lines in the side sections are also better.  The auditorium has increased from 73 to 99 seats, a 30% increase in saleable real estate that Lampert and Nunley say they want to fill.

"We're really working towards that," Nunley says.  "I think this first production will take care of itself, because it is the first.  But that's one of the reasons we moved to this space, so that we can fill that capacity.  That will be our challenge, going forward."


Backstage includes -- or will when the construction is completed -- a scene shop for building sets in-house, a costume storage room with space to sew, spacious dressing rooms and a green room (where the actors wait to go on stage), and storage.

But getting the first show on stage presented unusual challenges.   The scene shop space is currently storing the builders' tools and equipment.  When it is available it will be a comparative luxury compared to the Clinton House, where designers built sets in pieces off-site in their own shop or a rented shop and brought them to the theater to be assembled.  But Technical Director Brendan Komala couldn't wait for his shop to be available to build the first show.  He was forced to build the set for Private Lives around the others who were still building the building.

"Brendan had two saw horses here today, and two saw horses over there the next day," Lampert muses.  "If you're one of those people who likes the play within the play within the play, that's what we had.  The set for the play was being built around the building that was being built to house the play where the set would be played."

The new stage is almost identical in size to the old.  Both are 24 feet wide, but the new stage has about six feet more depth.  In the first production that space is largely used by the set, so the actual playing space is about the same. 

"The theater looks very much like our old space," Nunley says.  "The seating on the sides is almost exactly the same.  The seating in the front is just a little more angled so there are better views.  There is more height, and we can put up more lights.  We were limited by the amount of power we had coming into the building, and the number of places we had to hang lights in the old space."


The new theater is the company's fourth home, the first it can really call its own.  The Kitchen Theatre was founded in 1991 by Matt Tauber and Tim O'Brian, Ithaca College students who wanted to do kinds of work that they were not doing at school.  That included what Lampert labels 'bad boy, outlaw' dramas of playwrights like Sam Shepard and David Mamet.  It was largely financed by Tauber, and coincidentally located in the building next door to the new Kitchen, the Ithaca Theater, an old movie house that is now Bishop's Carpet Warehouse.  Some productions were staged in the Women's Community building until the theater moved into the Clinton House in 1995.  Then Norm Johnson ran the theater for two and a half years until Lampert was brought in in 1997.

The move is exciting for the new space, but Nunley says that owning the theater will also allow the company to take better charge of its finances.  The monthly mortgage payments are actually less than the rent they paid at the Clinton House, and eventually the company will build out the third floor of the building so that offices there can replace rented ones at their rehearsal facility across the street from the State Theatre.

"One of the big reasons we made this move is to own our own space, but also to have more control over what we're spending," he says.  "We hope to really see the advantage of having control our space and realizing some of the income we made this move for, so that this theater can further stabilize itself."

Lampert's biggest concern is to keep the mission of the Kitchen intact.  She resisted the temptation to change the character of the theater by significantly increasing stage space, or going to a different configuration.  The new theater is an improved version of the old one, without the crowding and distractions of having a light booth cramped among the audience, or sets smooched against the back wall to maximize playing space.

"The Kitchen Theatre's history and success has been made on the fact that we have focussed on being an actor's theater, and our focus on directors who can bring really good performances out of actors and work together in a collaborative way," she says.  "The new building will offer us opportunities to have a little more glitz and open our minds, more, but our focus is still going to be on great performances in a small, intimate space.  My biggest concern is -- when you get a building you become an institution -- that what doesn't change about us in all this beautiful space it hat we still have that collaborative process that goes on between the actors and the directors."

Staff and volunteers have been instrumental in painting and finishing parts of the building.  Nunley supervised a crew of Ithaca College students in painting the side of the building, and volunteers painted the lobby, back stage rooms, and the theater.  As the old building configuration was demolished, materials were saved for recycling.  Metal and lumber were stacked and saved, and volunteer Norm Culver removed all the nails.  Mirrors were saved to be reused in the new space, and a large number of 2x4s were harvested that have been used to create storage shelves.  A rented storage unit is stacked with more recycled 2x4s that will be save money on building sets for a long time to come.


The time between now and opening will be a transition from construction site to vibrant, working theater.  While every detail may not be in place -- Lampert says she hopes a beautiful poured concrete and recycled glass top will be installed onto the concessions bar before the opening -- the dynamic of the building will be changed forever next Wednesday.  The excitement is palpable, and coming from staff, workment, patrons that stop by, and local businesses.  A wine and hors d'oeuvres reception every night before 'Private Lives' will be sponsored by a group of west end businesses as a welcome to the neighborhood.  Wednesday also will mark the end of a stressful time and the beginning of a new era for Nunley and Lampert, who say they want Ithaca to become a place where artists can come to live and work professionally.

"There are going to be great new things here, but we're going to bring with us that tradition of what we do best, which is 'bold, intimate, engaging, important conversations happen in the Kitchen'," Lampert says.  "All the things we say about ourselves are going to happen here.  We'll keep the focus on what we do.  We strive for excellence in the performances, and for a kind of rehearsal process that allows people to really explore the play and their roles, and ultimately have a long enough time to play the roles so that the play can really season."

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