Theater Getting the Boot from the Center?

Our theater columnist John Longenbaugh writes:

On the face of it, the announcement that Seattle Center is planning on extensive remodeling of Center House doesn�t exactly sound like a looming cultural crisis. After all, the drab Food Court with its odd little stage and scattered dining tables isn�t exactly a beloved Seattle icon. But it�s what is above and below the main floor of Center House that has a group of local theater artists concerned.

One floor down from the Food Court is the Center House Theater, which houses both Seattle Shakespeare Company and Book-It Repertory, as well as occasionally renting out to smaller companies for short runs. Three floors up from the Food Court are the offices and rehearsal rooms of Theater Puget Sound, who also run their own small black box space, Theater 4. A variety of local companies, from the large Equity houses to the smallest fringe groups, use these rehearsal rooms because of their low rates and generous square footage. The thought of losing these rooms, as well as the performance venues, is particularly alarming given that Capitol Hill�s Freehold Theater Lab, the other favorite source of cheap rehearsal space, is slated to leave the newly-purchased Oddfellows Hall, probably as early as this spring.

While Seattle Center�s been at least tolerant of TPS and the two mid-sized groups that share its theater, they�ve hardly been interested in actively promoting them. They�ve forbidden any sort of signage to guide audiences to venues upstairs or down, and the 4th Floor where TPS makes its home is accessible only through what I suspect is the slowest elevator still operating west of the Mississippi. Theater artists and those who love them have failed to get any sort of resonant voice in the last few years as venue after venue has been closed thanks to Seattle�s development frenzy. But they�ll get a chance to have their voices heard at a public forum on plans to renovate the Center held this Thursday the 24th at 6:30 pm in the Lopez Room, near the corner of 1st Ave North and Republican St.