Something from Nothing
One big regret I have, which dates back to 2016, is my lack of historical documentation. I think back to the day that Stacey Brady, ECTC Board Member and advocate, brought Nathanael and me to the empty, echoey 17,000 sq. foot space that now houses Emerald Coast Theatre Company and asked, “Do you think this will work?” We laughed, and then we cried, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the gift that we were being given from Grand Boulevard. I never dreamed of how full it would become. Full of people, full of things, full of life. I should have created a time lapse video of the curtain track being hung in the rafters and how our theatre friends and colleagues showed up to do math and hang curtains in all the right places. The space slowly began to take shape and form- a curtained off black box area with room for 100 seats, a shop area, a small corral of desks, and a spot in the corner for the bins of costumes and props we had accumulated and stored in my Father’s shed when it outgrew our garage. We finally had our own space! We could build a set and install it without loading it into our car for transport. Costume and props creation could now happen at a table in our new theatre instead of my kitchen table at home. We could strike the set and not have to load it up for two or three trips back to our garage. It was practically a life of leisure to have an actual location!
Even after the curtains were hung, the space felt massive. I was given a bright blue scooter that Christmas, and I used it to get from the back, where our “offices” are, to the front lobby area. There came a point when I had to abandon my mode of transportation because the growing number of cords, curtains, and people had multiplied so much that there were just no more pathways for scootering. We recently extended the green room to hold fifteen people and two racks of costumes- and if everyone turns sideways and sucks in, they can maneuver around fairly well. This past season, we moved our curtains again to maximize our mainstage seating to 260 seats. We’ve also challenged Beca, our Resident Designer, and Carl, our Master Carpenter, to work in less and less shop space as they simultaneously build bigger and more elaborate sets for the larger shows we are producing. The resourcefulness of our production team always inspires me, because they always figure out a way to make the magic happen.
If I were to give you a tour today, you would see every inch of this incredible space in use. During the summers, we have some weeks where we simultaneously run four camps totaling almost 100 students. It is a cacophony of joy and energy and so much life happening in real time. There are the little ones in our small dance studio, the big kids dancing their hearts out in the larger rehearsal room, the serious teens working on their murder mystery in the second stage area of the lobby, and our audition-only group singing at full volume on the main stage theatre. You would see Taylor, our Costume Designer, up on the 12 foot high rolling step ladder to pull costumes that have been hung from the ceiling while Ora, our Props Master, forges a path between the shelves of prop bins and set furniture to find that one perfect centerpiece for the show. This year, we were so grateful when friends and supporters Brooks and Cari-Beth McDonald gifted the administration team a separate office space to work in for the summer. We affectionately named it “the quiet place.”
Just like this once empty and echoey space, theatre is about creating something from nothing. The playwright creates that first spark and ignites a firestorm of imagery, music, lyrics, and emotion. We then get to build those flat words into three dimensional miracles that exist for a moment in time. Ephemeral little worlds filled with texture and life and color and structure and wood and velvet and people moving and breathing in a way that never happens the same way twice. I hope you’ll join us in real time for Season 13 and see all the worlds that ECTC has made into something from nothing.
