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Bathhouse Theater Revival
By Abby Freedman
Participants in the Seattle Public Theater youth program show their stuff. Paul Bestock photo. |
The Bathhouse Theater, run by the Seattle Public Theater (SPT), is in its second incarnation as a playhouse. After serving as a bathhouse decades ago, it was reopened as a theater in the '70s.
But the company ran into financial trouble after 25 years in businesss. It was closed down, and many people forgot about its existence. SPT won the bid and turned it back into a 167-seat theater.
"It's a place with a great sense of Seattle history," said Shana Bestock, SPT's artistic director.
But financial woes seemed contagious, as SPT struggled to make ends meet in the new space. The company really became troubled when the artistic director left to have a family.
"A few board members left, our artistic director was gone--then we got on shaky ground," Bestock said. "The board was prepared to say that we should fold up shop, and they were going to do it before the Christmas show, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever."
Bestock, who had been in that same show when she was nine, was determined that the show must go on.
"I said, 'No! Let me direct it,'" she said. "So we did the show on no money and it ended up a huge success."
Since then, she and the board members have entered into a series of discussions about what to do now that the theater will remain open.
Besides wanting to support and foster the works of local playwrights, Bestock hopes to change the standard, pejorative view of community theater, and show that it can be effective and moving. "Community theater opens us up to the diversity in our community," she said. "It really makes us think about the nature of our society but not in a heavy, political way--in an interpersonal way."
Right now, Bestock is focusing on SPT's summer youth program, with one-week classes in arts such as improv and puppetry and one-month production classes for Twelfth Night and The Hobbit.
Once the summer programs are over, she can look forward to the next year's schedule, which includes For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide, Even Steven Goes to War and The Golem. ForGolem, Bestock is currently working with some of Seattle's premier puppeteers. In October, the theater will be turned into a haunted house, which Bestock thinks is very fitting. "There is no space more haunted," she said.
Mainly, she is excited to work in the Bathhouse Theater, because its small space lends it an air of intimacy.
"You are always aware of being part of the audience," Bestock said. "It's difficult to see the show and remain disengaged, like you can do with larger houses. It's a funky place to have theater."
The Bathhouse Theater is located at 7312 W. Greenlake Dr. N. For more information about the theater, go to www.seattlepublictheater.org.
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| laurie baker | Nov 25, 2003 | seattle | retired |
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