Flooding at Austin Playhouse

Dear friends,

Saturday morning, our heroic Box Office Manager, arrived at the theatre to find an old sewage pipe left over from the Highland Mall days had broken its sealing cap and was spewing dirty water into the theatre. By the time ACC shut off the water it had already gotten backstage and some water had splashed onto the stage near where the pipe broke. The pipe was located above the off-stage right area, connected to ACC plumbing above the theatre.

 ACC immediately assigned an environmental safety team and had Blackman Mooring come in Saturday afternoon to start the clean up. They got all the accessible water out, cleaned the floors, removed the laminate flooring in the scene shop and the hallway by the restrooms, and installed industrial dehumidifiers throughout the theatre. We moved the bulk of the costumes to the front lobby so they'd be out of the way of the backstage cleanup.

On Monday, November 5, the team came back to do more testing and made the determination to remove affected parts of the stage, some sheetrock, and more flooring backstage. We all want to make sure that every bit of contaminant is removed. All this has meant we are unable to open The Mystery of Edwin Drood on November 16 as planned.

Right now there's a ton of activity in the space. Our entire backstage area is being packed up and moved into a storage pod so that the backstage tile floor and some affected drywall can be removed.

We are still dependent on a lot of moving pieces moving the way they should, but we also have to keep moving forward. We're planning to start public performances on Saturday, November 24. We look forward to seeing you at the theatre!