RICHMOND, VA. -- Anyone venturing out to see a play in and around Richmond, Va., is in for far more than the ordinary theatre experience. How about taking in dinner and a show at a 350-year-old gristmill or watching a drama unfold inside a 1919 railway station? What could be more fitting on a midsummer's night than enjoying a Shakespearean comedy in the courtyard of a 15th-century Tudor manor house? While Richmond does have a few conventional theatres, the standard seems to be found space.
For example, Swift Creek Mill Theatre (www.swiftcreekmill.com), 20 miles south of Richmond in Colonial Heights, is experiencing its second incarnation as a dinner theatre. In existence since at least 1663, its building is believed to be the oldest gristmill in the United States. According to Chip McCoull, the theatre's manager, a group of local performers, including his aunt and uncle, pooled their resources in 1965 to buy the mill and convert it into a dinner theatre. Much of the equipment remains as charming accents throughout the building.
At age 10, McCoull performed in the theatre's first production; he eventually bought the mill from his aunt and uncle. In addition to the constant upkeep required by a historic structure, one of his biggest challenges, he says, is finding the right show for the space. Forty years ago, when his aunt and uncle ran the venue, "the question was 'Which show will we do?' Now the question is 'What show can we do?' "
McCoull says a new play used to have a five-year cycle. It would start when the show ran on Broadway, followed by a tour, and then the regional-theatre circuit. "Today you've got Cats, Phantom, Beauty and the Beast. They're not plays," he says, "they're Macy's." While Swift Creek Mill Theatre has seen good years and lean years, McCoull credits the generosity of others for its survival.
In 2001, he sold the mill to Marilyn and Robert Walker, philanthropists who eventually refurbished the 244-seat house and added a new stage, lighting, parking, and other improvements. Thanks to the Walkers' generosity, patrons will continue to enjoy dinner, theatre, and a step back in time by the old mill stream.
Mind Your Manor
For eight summers, Encore! Theatre Company's Richmond Shakespeare Festival (www.richmondshakespeare.com) has entertained audiences in the idyllic courtyard of Agecroft Hall, a 500-year-old Tudor manor house. Having stood for centuries on the bank of the Irwell River in England, the building was dismantled in 1925, transported across the Atlantic, and reassembled on the bank of the James River, where it now serves as a museum. Productions of the Bard's plays, under the stars and against the backdrop of the timber-and-daub manor, are a theatregoer's midsummer night's dream.
But working in a space not originally designed for theatre presents special challenges to performers. In the case of Agecroft Hall, actors must be extra careful, especially when swinging swords beside the faรงade. "After all," says Encore!'s artistic director, Grant Mudge, "it's older than any building in America."
The same care must be taken from October through April, when the Richmond Shakespeare Theatre mounts a three-play season at its second home, a beautiful sanctuary in the city's Second Presbyterian Church. The space lends itself perfectly to the Elizabethan period, with its arched ceilings, paneled walls, and stained-glass windows. "It looks like the Blackfriars," says Mudge. And what could be more perfect than a balcony for Romeo and Juliet?
While theatre productions must work around the schedules of Agecroft Hall and Second Presbyterian, the venues do offer advantages. Just as theatregoers get a sneak peek inside a museum and a church, museum visitors and parishioners may be enticed to buy tickets to a play. Mudge is pleased with the reception at both venues, and he says he's tickled when pastor Ben Sparks gives a talkback, not a sermon, following a performance at the church.
Squaring the Triangle
The Richmond Triangle Players (www.rtriangle.org) have found a home at Fieldens, a well-known private nightclub in downtown Richmond. In 1992, a group of friends interested in raising AIDS awareness got together for a charity fundraiser to benefit a local clinic. Fieldens offered the dance area in an upstairs lounge, where Safe Sex, three one-acts by Harvey Fierstein, was performed over three nights. The event was such a success that the group was asked to stay, and the Triangle Players, presenting primarily gay- and lesbian-themed plays, was born.
Mike Gooding, the company's managing director, says that until the Triangle Players took over the space, it required eight people two hours before and after each performance to set up and take down stage platforms and more than 60 chairs. Fieldens, a brick building only 24 feet wide, was built in 1921 to house an automobile dealership. Because of space limitations, Gooding says, "we have to pick our plays carefully, we can't do large casts, and we can't do a show with a bunch of sets." While actors, directors, and stage managers receive small stipends, Gooding reports that most of the profits from the company's shows go to Richmond charities.
Spark of the Firehouse
The Firehouse Theatre Project (www.firehousetheatre.org) was founded in 1993 when a handful of acting students studying Meisner decided to start their own company. Their mission: to produce contemporary American works "with an emphasis on plays not previously produced in the metropolitan Richmond area, including developing, producing, and performing at least one new play each year."
The company's first productions were mounted in a tiny coffeehouse in nearby Carytown. Due to packed houses, the actors had to wait on the sidewalk and listen for their cues on a monitor. Carol Piersol, a co-founder of the company and its artistic director, says they were enthused by the reception but knew the coffeehouse couldn't sustain a theatre. The group checked out various spaces, including warehouses and a vacant theatre, before learning of the city of Richmond's plan to auction off an old Broad Street firehouse.
Another company co-founder, Bill Gordon, was working then as a reporter covering City Hall. He made a call, and soon the actors were putting on benefits in the firehouse with the hope of purchasing the building. (As luck would have it, Councilman Timothy Kaine, later mayor of Richmond and now governor of Virginia, had performed in a 10-minute play with the group.)
Unfortunately, says Piersol, every time the company mounted a fundraiser, the fire trucks had to be moved. Meanwhile, pleas were made to keep the auction of the building at bay while $80,000 was raised to buy it. According to board president Harry Kollatz, mystery writer Patricia Cornwell donated $2,000 to pay the first insurance premium on the space, and in 1999, arts supporters Barbara and Roy Sutton purchased the building with the understanding that the actors would have 10 years to buy it at the original price. Grants funded risers, a new roof, and an HVAC system, and a nearby church offered 110 seats for a dollar each.
Last year marked the firehouse's centenary, and the Firehouse Theatre Project inside is going strong. The group continues to produce contemporary works that other theatres shy away from, hosts a national new-play competition, and brings in playwrights like Edward Albee and Israel Horovitz for special events.
And now Kollatz has his eye on the firefighters' bunkroom, a huge space on the second floor, for a 50-seat black box. It will take money, however, to build a second staircase to meet local fire codes. After all, a brass pole doesn't count.
Out of the Ordinary
Located 15 miles north of Richmond, Hanover Tavern is famous not only for its historic connections but for its second life as the home of Barksdale Theatre (www.barksdalerichmond.org). The building was licensed as an ordinary -- a tavern -- in 1733, and by 1763, Patrick Henry and his family were living on the site, which lies at the edge of a stagecoach route that once ran to Washington, D.C.
Through the years, the tavern served as a place of respite for such travelers as Edgar Allan Poe, P.T. Barnum, Charles Dickens, Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and George Washington, who -- yes -- slept there. Records show that the earliest surviving section of the 12,000-square-foot structure was built in 1791. Over time, trains, automobiles, and Prohibition contributed to its decline, and by the mid-1950s the 33-room building had fallen into disrepair and was seldom used.
In 1953, according to a history of Barksdale Theatre on its website, "six actors, two children, a dog, and two pigs" moved into the dilapidated tavern and began a labor of love, creating a venue named for Barbara Barksdale, a deceased friend. Company members made repairs while holding down day jobs, building a theatre in the English basement, serving meals to patrons, and producing shows. Despite poor plumbing and a lack of heat and air conditioning, Barksdale and the tavern thrived; the company gained respect for producing challenging theatre and some important firsts were established. Barksdale, for example, is said to be the first dinner theatre in the country, the first performing-arts organization in Virginia to open its doors to integrated audiences, and the first Virginia theatre to offer professional theatre classes to children. In 1990, co-founders Muriel McAuley and Pete Kilgore sold the tavern to the Hanover Tavern Foundation, and in 1993, after 40 years of devotion, they retired.
A complete restoration of the tavern was still needed, however, and in 1996, Barksdale relocated to a 200-seat theatre in a shopping center, where its financial troubles mounted. In 2001, as Barksdale's doors were set to close, two actors turned businessmen, Bruce Miller and Phil Whiteway, founders of Richmond's Theatre IV, the nation's second-largest children's theatre, came to the rescue. They had fond memories of the tavern where, fresh out of college in the 1970s, they'd performed in Barksdale productions. Says Whiteway, "It just seemed we couldn't not do anything."
Miller and Whiteway are also no strangers to found theatre spaces. Theatre IV's first 11 years were spent in 14 different locations, including the basements of a boys club and a men's clothing store, before they purchased the Empire Theatre, a traditional theatre space in Richmond.
Five years later, Miller and Whiteway have revived the fortunes of Barksdale at the mall, and today they say subscriptions are up sevenfold and that theatregoers, once inside, disregard the shopping center surroundings: "You don't drive into the parking lot, look at our humble storefront, and think, 'They must make magic there.' "
Meanwhile, a $3 million renovation of Hanover Tavern was recently completed, and Miller and Whiteway, already with two theatres under their management, couldn't say no to operating one more at Barksdale's old home. Just like in the old days, the faint clanking of dishes can be heard during performances, but it's less a distraction than a pleasant reminder that theatre in the tavern is once again alive.
Scientific Scenes
Audiences for the Carpenter Science Theatre Company (www.larrygard.freeyellow.com/page8.html) are in for a treat when they enter the Broad Street Railway Station, now home to the Science Museum of Virginia. In the glory years of railroad transportation, the station, put into service in 1919, saw an average of 57 trains per day and up to 30,000 passengers. Today there's a feeling of reverence from visitors passing through the magnificent marble rotunda on their way to the Eureka Theater. They often pause in awe of what may be the world's longest Foucault pendulum swinging from the ceiling.
Founded in 1996 by the museum's operations director, Barry Hayes, Carpenter's first production was Barbara Field's Playing With Fire: After Frankenstein, which was performed in the round on a portable stage in the forum, a large room adjacent to the rotunda. According to Artistic Director Larry Gard, the show was a resounding success. In 2000, the 120-seat Eureka Theater opened, and the company presents 340 performances a year for as many as 30,000 visitors, he says.
Science, naturally, is the focus of most Carpenter shows, and Gard believes science and theatre make a great match. "We put a human face on science when we dramatize it," he says, "and it's a great teaching tool. The magic of theatre makes the visit to the museum an experience instead of just a place to go."
