Signing the Contract

Dear Friends,

Yesterday afternoon Don Toner signed our contract to purchase our building site in the Mueller Town Center. We are the first business to have a signed contract for the Town Center portion of the Mueller development and we are incredibly proud. We have accomplished a tremendous amount already, and  we're confident we're on the right path to making our dream a reality. Thank you to everyone who has helped us reach this milestone and especially to our attorney, Gary Greif and our architect, Scott Ginder.

What we've already done:
-Our site plan was submitted in November. The site plan approval process can take several months, so it was crucial that we started the process as soon as possible.
-We have raised almost $400,000 in pledges and contributions. During the first phase of our fundraising efforts we reached out to our long-time supporters. We've been very gratified by their initial outpouring of support for this project.

What will happen next:
-We anticipate closing within 60 days as soon as the remainder of our financing is in place. 
-We will begin construction as soon as closing occurs and the site plan is approved. We are currently estimating construction will begin in late February. Construction will take six to seven months to complete and we will open our new theatre in Fall 2012.
-We will expand our fundraising efforts to include the greater Austin community, foundations, and corporations.

In the meantime:
-Our 2011-2012 season will continue in our temporary facility. You'll be able to see the progress on the building each time you visit the theatre.
-Upcoming productions include Boeing-Boeing, January 27 - February 26, and A Room With a View, running March 23 - April 22.

How you can help:
We are financing the project by a combination of individual contributions and innovative loan programs through the City of Austin's Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office. If you would like to make a contribution or pledge, please visit our website.

Thank you for your continued support. We couldn't do it without you!

Sincerely,
Lara Toner and your friends at Austin Playhouse

Finishing touches

We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! The past month has been a bit of a blur, so it was really great to take a few days off and just be thankful for all our blessings.

On Friday, November 18, we opened our 2011-2012 Season with The Lion in Winter. It was an incredible day that included a lot of really, really hard work from our team. Some extra permitting requirements had everyone working overtime -but our lovely concrete walkway, extra railings, and super-reinforced risers will all make the theatre experience more comfortable. 

Opening Night had some extra drama and I'll let Jillian Owens from the Austin Chronicle tell you all about it!
I will say the lights were restored shortly after and we learned a new lesson about generator maintenance and were reminded again what amazing pros we have both on and off stage.
The rest of Opening Weekend was fairly uneventful in comparison!

We took Thanksgiving off and then got back to work Friday night. On Saturday, cooler temperatures and high winds tested the limits of our tent. The heaters we had just weren't enough and we made the difficult decision to cancel the performance. Our heartfelt thanks to Saturday's extremely gracious audience, many of whom came right back and caught the show on Sunday. We've added several high-powered heaters and are working out a plan for greater insulation and energy efficiency.

We will continue to improve our little tent to make it as comfortable as possible. Huge thanks go out to all that have supported our efforts over the past months. We have a long way to go to get to our permanent home, but we will get there with your help.


At 7pm on Opening Night volunteers finished cleaning the seats to get them ready for the audience!



Don Toner and Mike Toner finish the railing just in time for Opening!

Rounding the Corner

Our tent theatre is almost complete! And we still have four days to go! All the seats are installed (we managed to squeeze in 129!), the set is almost finished, carpet arrives today, and the final fortifying of our structure happens this afternoon. Another huge round of applause is due to our amazing crew and our fearless leader, Don, who have been working almost round the clock to get the space ready for Opening Night. Speaking of Opening, the set is almost complete, the costumes look absolutely amazing, and tickets are selling quickly. We'll see you all soon!

Seats! These are not easy to install, y'all. I think about twelve people worked on seat installation. Thank you!

Our set is taking shape! And look at all that legroom! This is going to be  a very comfortable tent.

And look at that height! 21-foot ceilings mean we could do two-story sets!

 All in all we're pretty pleased with our new home and we hope you will be too. See you at the theatre!

It's beginning to look a lot like a theatre!

Our temporary space is really taking shape now! Over the past week we've finished enclosing the tent, added doors, a stage floor, and risers for seats. We're working day and night to get the theatre ready for Opening Night of The Lion in Winter on November 18th! 

The stage floor is ready to go. It's just a little bigger than the stage at our old Penn Field space.



The risers for seats are being finished today.



We got our theatre seats out of storage and brought them to the tent on Saturday.



Our crew loaded in the seats and will install them today.

A stage floor and risers have really helped the space take shape. In a few days it should look like a real theatre!

The theatre takes shape

We've been very busy this week. Our temporary structure is almost complete and our crew is constructing the stage floor right now. First though, did everyone see this article in the Statesman on our temporary theatre? Huge thanks to Jeanne Claire van Ryzin who came out on Thursday to inspect our building progress. On Saturday we were out at Mueller again to put the cover on our tent!

Our volunteers unfurled the huge tent covering. The tension fabric cover is very big and very heavy.




Then we let the actors loose to carry cables across the structure so the covering could be hauled over it. Here we have Don Toner and David Stokey practicing their circus skills.



Lara Toner carried another cable across the top of the building.

Once the cables were across the heavy lifting started!

Huck Huckaby and Don Toner adjusted the tent cover.

David Stokey gave his approval on the cover placement.

At the end of the day Saturday we had our cover in place. The crew then began to prep the front and back sides for their panels.

Weekend Building Progress

The building crew started early Saturday morning. We had several members of our Acting Company as well as our architect and a few professional builders. Huge thanks to everyone who came out and made Saturday so successful!

Getting the first arch into the air took our entire crew of sixteen workers!

It was pretty awesome when the arch made it into place. Each arch is 55' long and 21' high.

The building has four arches each spaced twenty feet apart that form a 60' frame.

The arches are connected by a series of steel beams.



Acting company members Brian Coughlin, Ben Wolfe, Barry Miller, and Rick Roemer, along with our architect Scott Ginder line up the third arch.





 

At the end of the day, we put up the Austin Playhouse sign. We will finish up the building next Saturday and start installing the seats and risers on Sunday. It was a gorgeous and productive day out at Mueller, we look forward to many more!

Our new (temporary) theatre arrives!



On Tuesday, October 18th our temporary theatre rolled into town on the back of this truck. Our crew quickly unloaded the materials and laid them out in the field.

  

After we assessed the materials, Don discovered that they were different than the ones we were expecting. As it turns out, we'd been sent instructions for another building. 
After several phone calls and more assessing, we determined that the building we received is fine and may even be a little easier to assemble! (We'll find out soon...)



Here's David Weaver trying to wrap his head around the new building instructions!

 

David was an expert forklift operator!


 

On Wednesday our crew was back at Mueller and started connecting the trusses.




Stay tuned for more progress reports as our temporary building takes shape!