At a time when many Seattle theater companies are struggling to keep their doors open and their curtains drawn, Stone Soup Theatre plans to expand to a second location.The new stage - aptly named "DownStage" and located two doors down from Stone Soup's original location at 4035 Stone Way N. - will open its curtains for the first time when the company begins its 13th season on Oct. 29 with "A Stoppard Duo." An official gala opening will take place on Nov. 1. "It was a tricky decision whether to keep both spaces, especially in our economic climate and with so many theaters in Seattle closing," said Corey McDaniel, Stone Soup Theatre's marketing director. "Maureen Miko has done a great job because she hasn't grown too much or too fast. But now it's time to grow." Miko, Stone Soup's founder and artistic director, lived in the theater's original location for the first seven years after it opened in 1996. She did this "in order to make it more affordable," Miko said. "Now in a time when people are losing their spaces, we're going to have two!"SHARING SPACEMiko is excited to use the new space to grow the theater community in the Fremont and Wallingford areas and to share Stone Soup's abundant theater space with homeless companies in Seattle. "What's happened on Capitol Hill is that many of the theater spaces have been essentially eliminated," Miko explained. "The rent is becoming so high that the artists just can't afford to rent space anymore. There's a lot of creative people and not a lot of outlets, [so] I'm going to be offering a space for these people."McDaniel also sees Stone Soup's expansion as a great opportunity to strengthen the broader Seattle theater community. "We're incredibly lucky that we can have two spaces, so we think it's important to make these spaces available to other companies," she said. "There are so many companies that have closed in Seattle, so we have better chance of survival if we do it together." A BIGGER, YET MORE INTIMATE SPACEDownStage will be nearly twice the size of Stone Soup's current location, now named UpStage. Miko anticipates that the larger space will offer more artistic freedom and a greater connection to the audience. "With the larger space, the variety of plays we can do is widened," she explained. "Also, this larger space steps up our comfort a little bit, so the theater, though bigger, will have a more intimate feeling."A new stage also allows Stone Soup to expand its bread-and-butter educational programs. In 1996, Stone Soup offered classes to 60 children; today, the number has grown to 450. Classes range from improv to acting to playwriting and production. "The classes are our stability. They bring in money for stability and allow us to grow," Miko said. "I named the place Stone Soup because everybody is a part of the pot: Everybody puts something in, including the kids." ROOM FOR TWOTwo theaters were not in the original plan, however. "We first were going to put the new theater in the old space," McDaniel said. "We would have had to completely raise the roof, which would have needed contractors.... But then our landlord said he had a building space that was the size we wanted just next door. We didn't want to lose this old space, so we said, 'Hey, let's do both.'"The project is now being completed using the nearly volunteer ("nearly volunteer" because the compensation is so negligible, according to McDaniel) people power of a handful of longtime Stone Soup Theatre supporters. Renovations are taking place in an old office building that had been lying dormant for two years. The space had to be gutted to make room for the new stage, and a good deal of equipment is needed to help rebuild the space for the October premiere. Stone Soup Theatre is asking for donations of equipment, time and, of course, money. To find out more, visit www.stonesouptheatre.com/donate.html.[[In-content Ad]]
