Life after Oak Street

Mad Horse, Acorn, and Flaming Productions were left homeless last spring. Have they found a place for their fall seasons?

by Robert von Stein Redick

HOME FOR ONE: Acorn cut a deal with the St. Lawrence Church on Munjoy Hill, but productions won't begin in the new space until next summer.

On March 16, Penny Carson dropped a bomb on the Portland theater community. It came in a letter to the Oak Street Theater's board of directors.

The board was involved in its annual lease negotiations with Carson, co-owner of the Oak Street property, and had received no indication that this year would be different from the previous seven. But was it ever. Her letter made it clear there would be no more leases: 92 Oak Street would become an office complex, the theater a memory.

Six months later, the dust is far from settled. Three Portland theater companies called Oak Street home. All three have been shaken to the core. Yet just as noteworthy, and perhaps more surprising, is the fact that the eviction has meant the death of none, and has even convinced their leaderships of the possibility for better days ahead.

That view reflects quite a turn-around. At a press conference of March 20 members of all three companies were in shock and more than a little confusion. Carson left town after delivering the letter and did not return for 10 days. No one knew the answer to the most pressing question: when? Carson had yet to decide on the closing date. When she returned, she told them it might be May 1. That was days before the scheduled opening of Love! Valour! Compassion!, the only play envisioned that year by Flaming Productions. It was also more than a month before the scheduled opening of Mad Horse Theater Company's season finale, What the Butler Saw.

Ultimately the date would be extended to July 15, and Butler would have the distinction of being the last play produced on the Oak Street stage. Carson even cancelled the last two months' rent, which went a long way towards allowing the theater to retire its debt. But before the date was agreed to, some deep wounds were inflicted.

"The timing was just incredibly awful," says J.D. Merritt, Flaming's founder and director. "Nobody at Oak Street had any idea that this was in the pipe. And when she left town, that was just the icing on the cake. It infuriated me. I was the producer, and I didn't know when she wanted us out. Here I was starting rehearsals for a show with no home."

Andrew Sokoloff, artistic director of Mad Horse, also remembers the damage caused by that uncertainty. "Ticket sales were way down for the last shows -- especially Off the Map, which went on right after the announcement. People thought the theater was already closed."

Even with a definite closing date, he insists, "it was devastating, both financially and emotionally. Obviously we couldn't sell season passes or find advertising or sponsorship or any of the stuff we usually do in the summer."

Most of the companies' long-term members invested labor in Oak Street over the years, but none so much as Mike Levine of Acorn Productions. He and his partner Elizabeth Buchsbaum also spent thousands of dollars on physical infrastructure and equipment. Many hoped to see Levine spearhead the search for a new venue.

But after seven years, Levine had had enough. In addition to a long play each year, he was now the director of the nearby Acorn School for the Performing Arts. "I felt no energy to create a new performance space a la Oak Street," he stressed. "I had lost enough money and enough time in my life."

The community didn't want to take no for an answer. "We got lots of calls," Levine remembers. "From real estate offices, from well-meaning patrons." The available sites were mostly "big, empty warehouses" -- the kind of places which, as he knew, could absorb one's efforts for months or years. Levine turned them down.

Then Levine met Deirdre Nice. In 1993 Nice had purchased the St. Lawrence Church, a large and lovely stone edifice at the eastern end of Congress Street. Her purchase saved it from the wrecking ball. Nice and friends then organized a nonprofit organization to own and manage the St. Lawrence and to oversee an elaborate floor-to-steeple restoration. Their goal: an arts and community center in the heart of the Munjoy Hill neighborhood. When Levine met her in April, the managers had just started looking for a user of the half-restored Parish Hall.

"I had my typical skepticism," admits Levine. "But this place was kind of unique. They were working already. They were running with the ball. And the second thing was that the space was just gorgeous. Tremendous character. You just needed to look through a lot of dirt to see the potential."

"I told them they would have to make certain commitments," Levine recalls. "They were already dividing the space in an inappropriate way for a professional theater." He also insisted that any theater he helped to launch operate on "Oak Street-like principles." That meant being open to various companies at reasonable prices.

Negotiations lasted nearly two months, but eventually they came to terms. The Friends of the St. Lawrence (as the nonprofit is known) will manage the property; Acorn will rent the 90-seat stage at least twice a year. In theory, Levine and Buchsbaum will have avoided most of the administrative tangles they feared, although they're up to their elbows now. Perhaps their biggest role has been fundraising for St. Lawrence: $86,000 since June 1, including a $25,000 grant from the Davis Family Foundation. Their goals are $140,000 and a full-length Shakespearean comedy production by Acorn before next summer.

The other ex-Oak Street companies can't yet report any such victory over homelessness. Sokoloff is quick to point out that the Acorn-St. Lawrence partnership is "a great thing" even though "it's not going to be a good fit for Mad Horse." As a community center with many users envisioned, the St. Lawrence just can't provide enough weeks for an ambitious multi-play season.

Sokoloff's own hunt for a new stage has focused on networking. Since the decision to close Oak Street, he's been in constant talks with smaller theater ensembles (including Flaming) and the municipal authorities. "The city really wants to be helpful," he says. "It's sort of a question of what the best fit is going to be."

Does that mean Sokoloff will soon be leading the Horse to water? Not just yet. But he insists, "I'm extremely optimistic. It's going to take some time to sort things out, but we will." One source of his enthusiasm is the Portland community's support. "We get phone calls, we get letters, I get stopped on the street. Everybody wants to know what's happening."

Meanwhile, Mad Horse gallops on with two productions this fall. This year only, they'll be staged in a small South Portland facility that was once -- you guessed it -- a church. Bash by Neil LaBute and Three Viewings by Jeffrey Hatcher will run on alternating nights from October 19 through November 5. Both are benefit shows; the actors are donating their services for free: more signs of Portland solidarity. The show, however, is invitation only.

As for Flaming Productions, Merritt admits to being "sort of at a standstill." Of the three companies, Flaming has always been the most hand-to-mouth, and the chaos surrounding Oak Street's closing led to disappointing attendance for Love! Valour! Compassion! Instead of being able to devote time to publicity, Merritt found himself caught up in a wrenching city-wide debate on Portland's artistic future. "The stress level of that time was just so intense," he says. "Here I was acting, producing, and trying to put out all these fires. I never want to go through anything like that again in my life." Worst of all, Merritt had to inform his cast at the first rehearsal that they might not have a stage to perform on. "But the cast said, `You know what? We'll do it in a barn. We'll do it in the street.' That was what kept me going in the darkest hours. I knew these guys wanted to do the best show possible, and they didn't care where."

Despite such beyond-the-call-of-duty commitment, the show lost money, and Merritt is still working to pay off the debt. "I sort of feel lost. At this point I usually have my whole year mapped out. And right now," he laughs, "I don't." Not that he's short of work: fresh from the national tour of Traditional Family Vampires, a short film by Bob Poirier and Michael Bendzela, he's already looking ahead to his role in Mad Horse's Bash and a November play with Kekanis Productions at the Skinny.

As for a new home for Flaming, Merritt knows he can't make it happen alone. He believes his options are wide open. "I love the whole mission of what the St. Lawrence is doing and would love to be a part of that." At the same time, he wouldn't rule out a new partnership with Mad Horse, or further work at the Skinny.

It may strike some as ironic that the corporate interest in 92 Oak Street dried up shortly after the stage lights dimmed for the last time. Instead of $2000 a month, Carson's current income from the property is zero.

But the challenge to the acting companies is not only financial but existential. Despite his resolve to be a director and teacher rather than a property manager, Levine finds himself once again haggling over blueprints and fire codes, many months and $54,000 short of a new theater space. Sokoloff is building coalitions and reminding himself of the charms of "intimate performances." And Merritt is struggling to clear his credit cards.

It's perhaps as noteworthy as anything in this saga: literally put out in the street, not one of these companies talks of folding. Far from it: the future is what interest them. Joan Sand, director of Butler and the associate director of Mad Horse, expects a bright future for all three. "It's made us evaluate what we do and why, in a very healthy way."

Merritt agrees. "I miss Oak Street, and I'm always going to," he says. "But we have to move on. It's time to rethink the whole equation."

If the loss of a community theater has a good side, it is surely in such new thinking.

Robert von Stein Redick can be reached at robvsredick@earthlink.net.