Location, location, location. As in real estate and restaurants, when it comes to a live performance art like theatre it’s all about the where.
Many factors influence the success of a live event, but probably none is as important as the location. Because the physical space where something happens is so intimately linked to the audience (and indeed determines what audience will come), where to put on a show is the most important decision a producer will make. It’s more important than picking the play, playwright or cast. To a large degree, the location IS the experience.
In Portland theatre, the selection of exciting mid size spaces is short and getting shorter. A booming real estate gold rush is grinding out the older generation of rag tag venues (like Theater Theatre), and remaining ones are kept alive by donors, not ticket sales. Non theatre buildings are being converted to playing spaces, but these sites typically have technical, layout and audio challenges that can never be solved. New, smaller state of the art theatre venues are needed, but with limited audience numbers (and ever shrinking ticket prices) there is minimal commercial power to build out new spaces.
Meanwhile, music and comedy, which make much smaller demands on a space and can happen almost anywhere, are bursting at the seams in PDX. And lo! Fans of these two live formats are just about to get a major Christmas present in the form of Revolution Hall, a newly revamped 850 seat space. It’s the auditorium in Washington High School, where TBA went on for a few years. The project sounds fantastic and shows the kind of innovation that can happen when you combine smart producers and developers.
Turn out Feb 12-14 for a ridiculously star-studded opener featuring Wild Ones, Dan Savage and LiveWire.
