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Strolling past the boutiques and restaurants on Times Boulevard, you catch a slight smell of sawdust as blades grind through the roof of Main Street Theater.
“We are in the demolition phase at the moment and the demolition subcontractors are tearing away all the parts of the building that we’re not using,” says Joe Kirkendall, MST’s Capital Campaign Director. “We’re keeping most of the façade. We’re keeping two of the interior masonry walls, but pretty much everything else goes.”
The theater’s founding Artistic Director Rebecca Udden (left) and Joe Kirkendall, (right) Capital Campaign Director.
Kirkendall says that will also include the two structural poles on the stage that actors have had to maneuver around during performances for the past 30 years.
He calls it a building of the future — Green Mountain Energy is donating $100,000 worth of solar panels, which will greatly reduce the theater’s energy costs.
But even though the interior is changing, the theater’s founding Artistic Director Rebecca Udden says the spirit won’t.
“It’s not going to feel strange to our audience, except for the fact that there won’t be a pole in their sightline and there’ll be better restrooms,” says Udden. “The ceiling will be higher and things will be shinier, but it will still have the intimate feeling of Main Street Theater.”
The renovation, which will cost about $3.5 million and is expected to be complete by this fall.
The floor plan of the theater’s first level. The second level will be devoted to classrooms where summer camps and after-school programs are held. Courtesy of Studio RED Architects