Courtesy of Melissa Novecosky, Shaw Associate Director
Our next company meeting is Thursday,
July 9 at 10am the Shaw Artists’ Village in the Burton Centre for Lifelong
Creativity Village Hall. Following the meeting we’re opening the doors to the
Burton Centre, Visitor Residence and Wardrobe Shop so staff can poke around and
see what’s been happening over the last 18 months! Jude and the Green Room team
will be serving up some lovely Greek-inspired food outside of the Burton
Centre, so please join us for the meeting and stay to explore the spaces. A
ribbon cutting and public opening is being planned for August.
Let’s Get this Shaw on the Road continues to delight me every
Thursday, and a recent episode centred on the Shaw Artists’ Village. It
features a great interview with Jim Burton (from the James A. Burton and Family
Foundation), who spoke beautifully about the need for creative spaces in our
community, his relationship with philanthropy and why he believes in the All.
Together. Now vision. The episode also features Pragna Desai speaking about the
programming going into the Burton Centre for Lifelong Creativity, Jason Bendig
and Janet Ellis talking about the Wardrobe Shop, and Espoir Segbeaya and Rylan
Thomas commenting on their experience living at the Artists’ Residence.
Shaw Artists’ Village Update – (or)
Nothing like a deadline…
I know I’m not the only one who is
motivated by deadlines – a lifetime of working in theatre has trained me how to
push towards the most unmoveable deadline of them all - ‘opening night’. How
fitting then that the first public performance of Perfect Pairings on
July 7 is driving the final stretch of construction work at the Shaw Artists’
Village. There will be bits and bobs that linger and we’ll discover things as
we move into the space, but everyday more of the ‘to do’s’ are getting ‘to
done’.
In a dress rehearsal of sorts, we
welcomed folks to the Village Hall for the Funny Girl Sing Alongled
by Paul Sportelli on Thursday, June 25. With score in hand, Paul led the group
of 30(ish) audience members through the songs in FunnyGirl,
pausing to share insightful notes about the musical and the rehearsal process.
Audience members enthusiastically belted the songs they knew best, and we were
all surprised to learn what lyrics we thought we knew and in fact didn’t. As
with so many of our Education and Engagement events, the sing along deepened
everyone’s relationship with the work, and none of us will ever ‘hear’ Funny
Girl the same way. As a special treat, the Education team served a
lovely Green Room cheeseboard and Nosecco, a delightful alcohol-free bubby. The
next Sing Along is scheduled for December 5 for Cinderella – I
doubt there will be cheese, but there will be lots of singing!
A note on the naming of the buildings
at the Shaw Artists’ Village. The overall campus is the Shaw Artists’ Village.
The main education building is the Burton Centre for Lifelong Creativity.
Within the Burton Centre there are named spaces – including the Village Hall,
Dance Lab, Digital Lab, Studios 1 & 2 and Practice Rooms 1 & 2. Wings
100/200 are collectively known as the Artists’ Residence. Wing 300 is the
Visitors’ Residence. Wing 400 is the Wardrobe Construction Shop. Interior
signage is mostly up while exterior signage (including directions and parking
signage) will be installed mid-July.
Royal George Update – (or) She’s down
We’ve had a lot of exciting movement
at the Royal George construction site in the past month. At the end of May, we
received a site plan agreement and demolition permit from the town of
Niagara-on-the-Lake and began demolition of the theatre later that day.
The work started at the back of the
theatre and moved towards Queen St. The first two structures removed were the
rear and side backstage storage areas. The fly tower followed, with special
equipment required to bring down the high steel safely. Work continued towards
the front of the building as rubble was piled into the basement to create a
platform to move equipment forward.
A row of ‘seacans’ was added to create
a covered walkway on the Queen St. sidewalk for overhead protection as work
moved closer to the street. With the above ground structure removed crews
removed the concrete slab and the rubble from the basement and they have
removed the seacans.
We’ve now installed the semi-permanent
hoarding around the building site. We worked with the NOTL Museum to create a
historical timeline of the site and how the buildings on it have evolved over
the years – all leading us to the next act for the Royal George Theatre.
Demolition on site is now complete,
and the basement crevasse has been filled with dirt in preparation for the next
phase – shoring and footings/foundation work.
As always, if you have any questions,
or want more information, please let me know.
