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Friday, September 29, 2023
Why Seattle Shakespeare taking over Book-It scene shop is important to Seattle theater
The Seattle Times: When Book-It Repertory Theatre announced its closure earlier this year, company technical director Ben Radin’s phone lit up with the expected messages of condolence, surprise and well wishes. But, he said, the messages also contained concern for something else: What’s going to happen to the shop?
This is a really cool way to help support a multitude of theatre companies in Seattle. It’s really difficult and incredibly expensive to set up and operate a scene shop. The article also mentions the difficulty of finding warehouse space as a result of delivery companies expanding their warehouse system, which is a factor I haven’t really heard about or considered. I think it’s pretty admirable that Seattle Shakespeare Company is partaking in this project and acknowledging that it may take several seasons to start to get a profit out of it, at a time when small theatre companies have really struggled with finding financial stability. It’s also pretty cool how they want to keep prices low to make it a relatively easily accessible option for small theatre companies in the area. Hopefully, this works exactly as planned, and this shop set up allows for many other local theatre companies to expand their operations to help them grow.
It’s so amazing that Seattle Shakespeare Company was able to make this agreement to buy the shop! It’s always upsetting when a theater has to close, and so many have had a hard time recently after COVID. I realize now that I’ve never thought much about what happens to the shop (if it had a connected shop) when the theater closes. That is such an incredible resource that should continue to be used for productions, not closed away. Especially as this shop seems to be filled with incredibly talented makers, of which would be out of work if not for this deal. I’m glad that ‘Seattle Shakes’ saw the importance of the Book-It shop, and the opportunities that they have together now in collaboration. It’s also so great how they mentioned being able to train younger employees in these technical skills, giving them really valuable skills and hopefully improving the issue that they mentioned of “difficulties finding qualified technical directors and craftspeople.” Maybe now they’re helping take a step to help change that, especially with this new deal.
2 comments:
This is a really cool way to help support a multitude of theatre companies in Seattle. It’s really difficult and incredibly expensive to set up and operate a scene shop. The article also mentions the difficulty of finding warehouse space as a result of delivery companies expanding their warehouse system, which is a factor I haven’t really heard about or considered. I think it’s pretty admirable that Seattle Shakespeare Company is partaking in this project and acknowledging that it may take several seasons to start to get a profit out of it, at a time when small theatre companies have really struggled with finding financial stability. It’s also pretty cool how they want to keep prices low to make it a relatively easily accessible option for small theatre companies in the area. Hopefully, this works exactly as planned, and this shop set up allows for many other local theatre companies to expand their operations to help them grow.
It’s so amazing that Seattle Shakespeare Company was able to make this agreement to buy the shop! It’s always upsetting when a theater has to close, and so many have had a hard time recently after COVID. I realize now that I’ve never thought much about what happens to the shop (if it had a connected shop) when the theater closes. That is such an incredible resource that should continue to be used for productions, not closed away. Especially as this shop seems to be filled with incredibly talented makers, of which would be out of work if not for this deal. I’m glad that ‘Seattle Shakes’ saw the importance of the Book-It shop, and the opportunities that they have together now in collaboration. It’s also so great how they mentioned being able to train younger employees in these technical skills, giving them really valuable skills and hopefully improving the issue that they mentioned of “difficulties finding qualified technical directors and craftspeople.” Maybe now they’re helping take a step to help change that, especially with this new deal.
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