We have a theater!

The seats are in, people have been busy putting the box office together, moving shelves into the prop room and cleaning up everywhere, and the show is ready to start tonight.


Jeremy has been busy hanging lights and running cords everywhere.


The last platforms went in on Saturday, we built the ramp on Monday and moved the seats in on Tuesday. Phil met with the fire marshal on Wednesday and we passed our final inspection.


Meanwhile, the melodrama has been in final rehearsals all week, and we're ready to open with a great show tonight. See you there!

dave

The theater has been buzzing with activity this week, both during the day and at night. The sprinklers, lights and ceiling tiles are all done now, the doors were installed yesterday, and the bathrooms are making steady progress. The pipe for hanging the lights was put up Wednesday, and we have all of the stage lights hung over the audience now. We finished moving the last of the furniture, cabinets and sundry this weekend, and got all of the lights and cables and curtains down that were still up in the ceiling. We've been making steady progress on the audience platforms all this week. Here we are setting the first row in place.


We got lots of help putting the second row down.


Meanwhile, the melodrama cast has been busy building the prop shelves and, along with Jo Rake, Cathleen Greuztner and Nancy Hobbs, getting a lot of the boxes of props out of the dressing rooms and onto the shelves , in addition to constructing the set and rehearsing the show.

We got the third row last night - that's the big one that will also be the central aisle between the 3rd and 4th rows - and tonight I hope to get at lest the fourth row done and maybe the fifth if we're lucky. We'll be finishing the audience platforms and installing the seats on Saturday, starting at 10 am, and also building the long gentle ramp from the lobby to the auditorium. My plan is to be all finished with construction on Saturday and take Sunday off, so the melodrama can rehearse in peace and quiet starting with Sunday's tech rehearsal - they've already put up with a week's worth of sawing and drilling and welding noises.

We'll still continue with getting the rest of the props on the shelves and building out the dressing rooms and box office and lobby all next week from 7 to 9 each night, and be ready to enjoy opening night next Friday!

thanks,
dave

Here are some pictures that Barbara and Phil Duprey provided from the big move weekend of July 10-11.

The key man behind WOBCP's facilities management (building stuff, moving stuff) is Dave Bachmann.  Would it have been more difficult to move without Dave's hours of work?  Yup.  It's a good thing he had a lot of people to help him too.

Load up the trucks!

The storage area under the tech booth at the Crystal Falls location was a bit cramped.

But there's plenty of headroom and storage room under the new tech booth.

Painting the new stage.

There's a lot more room backstage too.

Moving the audience platforms into the new theatre.

Tracy Cathey is an original founding member of WOBCP.  She has been instrumental in the growth of the theatre.  Her hard work and dedication has helped WOBCP go from performing in the Cedar Park Library, through hard times (like a fire at the LEO Center threatening the organization's existence), and great times (too many to mention here), to the realization of a dream of having our own theatre.  No wonder Tracy has such a big smile on her face.

 

Of course, there's a lot more magic to come.  The move is almost complete.  The Annual Greneral Meeting was the first event held in the new theatre on July 20th.  Attendance at the AGM was the highest in memory.  Blame it on the Pony Express will be the first production in the new theatre.  The first regular season production (and grand opening?) will be Noises Off.  A great start in a great new theatre.

 

We got all but a couple of couches and desks and some cabinets last weekend, so we're going to make another run on Saturday, starting at 10:00 at the old theater. Jim is bringing a big trailer and we can also load stuff in the backs of our trucks. I hope some of you will consider coming to help for a couple of hours so we can get the last of the big stuff moved.

We had a light turnout last weekend, but Darold and Nancy Hobbs brought their grandsons to help on Saturday.



We have been making good progress at the new theater. Bryan Bumpus, Jason Jennings, Gary Hahn, Ron Revell and Jeremy Mielens put up drywall on the new back wall of the auditorium and finished it over the course of the last several days.



In addition to unloading the rest of the stuff we moved this weekend, Jim Wade ran network cable from the tech booth to the office, Jeremy Mielens, Ron Revell and Gary Hahn cut lots of legs for the new audience platforms, Gary Hahn, Christien Bumpus, Tracy Cathey, Ed Trujillo and I prepared the old audience platforms, Darold and Nancy Hobbs built prop shelves, Jo and Geoff Rake built shelf units for the box office, and Gary Hahn, Ron Revell, Tracy Cathey, Christien Bumpus, Jason Jennings and I ran the speaker wires in the ceiling while we had the use of the powered lifts.



The plumbers were busy all day Tuesday getting the bathrooms working, so by Tuesday evening we had a clean and functional cast bathroom, clean and functional ladies room, and semi-functional men's room, just in time for the annual general meeting. On Thursday the air conditioning folks worked into the evening, getting the A/C working, so we were actually able to close all the building doors and work in air-conditioned comfort last night, and they should finish the remaining duct work today. The electrical work is almost done; they're still putting up some of the lights in the front rooms and they haven't hooked them up the the light switches yet, the house light circuit is up and they've almost completed the circuit for the stage lights, and they're working on the lights in the storage room under the tech booth. The sprinkler system is almost complete; they still need to move one pipe so it's over the stage. And there's an old pipe over the back of the stage that we're going to move to use for hanging lights from.

dave

We need to finish screwing down the tech booth floor, tape and float the drywall on the new back wall of the auditorium, build shelves and counters in the box office, assemble wood and prop shelves, put legs on the new audience platforms, and as soon as the A/C and electrical work is done in the auditorium we will put up the audience platforms and install the seating.
 

 

Last night Jason Jennings, Jim Wade, Gary Hahn, Ed Trujillo and I got the stairs to the tech booth up, and Darold Hobbs and I fastened together the majority of the offstage platforms. Meanwhile Darold and Nancy Hobbs have been steadily moving the boxes of stuff from the old box office to the new one.


We're ready to move in the rest of the big stuff from the old theater this weekend. We're renting a big truck again, and we'll start loading it with the audience platforms, big flats, refrigerators, printers, copiers and whatever furniture is still left. We'll start at 10:00 Saturday morning, and continue at 10:00 on Sunday.

dave

Monday night, Jo Rake built half of offstage left using platforms from the old stage, while Gary Hahn, Jason Jennings, Jeremy Mielens and Ron Revell put up the joists for the tech booth.  On Tuesday evening, Jim Wade, Nona Whittington, Jeremy Mielens, Ed Trujillo and Christien Bumpus finished off stage left and did half of offstage right, while Gary, Jason, Ron, Jeremy and Bryan Bumpus finished the joists on the tech booth and started on the plywood floor.  Wednesday night, Christien, Bryan and Darold Hobbs finished the offstage right platforms, then along with Nancy Hobbs helped me build the stairs for the tech booth.



Meanwhile Gary, Jason and Ron put the rest of the floor down in the tech booth.



We all took turns standing up there - it's high!



Tracy covered all the seating in the front with dropcloths so they don't get stuff all over them from the A/C work.


Tonight we should be able to finish the stairs to the tech booth, and probably will get at least some of the drywall on the back wall of the auditorium that supports the tech booth.  We also should be able to get the offstage platforms screwed together and then the stage will be complete.


The electric work has been progressing.  All the outlets now work, and light switches work for the auditorium/backstage lights, as well as the cast bathroom and the prop room.  The switches are installed in the rehearsal hall, box office and lobby, but the lights are just now being put up so they're not functional.  They've been working on the air conditioning - there are now big openings in the roof where the roof units will connect down to the air ducts.  We're hoping for working A/C sometime next week, but not counting on having it for the Annual General Meeting on Tuesday.


dave

Friday afternoon, Jim Wade and I went with Skip Dunnett to rent two big moving vans for the weekend. On Friday night, Jim, Tracy Cathey, Christien Bumpus and Ed Trujillo finished putting the tops on the new audience platforms.


Brian Bumpus, Gary Hahn, Jason Jennings, and Ron Revell assembled and raised the front tech booth wall with enough joists to hold it in place.


By the evening's end, we were ready to move a theater in and fill up the rest of the space.


On Saturday morning, we started loading up all the wood and other stuff in the shop into one of the vans, which took about 3 hours, then ordered pizza and started working on disassembling the stage and some of the big metal shelves while it was coming. We filled up the second van with the stage platforms and all of the normal-sized flats. Meanwhile, Kay Baker coordinated the packing up of all the prop shelves and they filled up the front rooms with boxes and boxes. We then headed over to the new theater and spent several hours unloading all the wood and shop inhabitants in the first truck, and made a good start on the platforms in the second truck. Skip and I came up with at least 30 people who helped pack and move on Saturday.

On Sunday morning, Kay and Jim Baker and their son loaded up all the boxes from the front into a trailer and moved them over to fill up the dressing room in the new building, then they and Nona Whittington helped Jim get the rest of the platforms and the flats out of the second truck. By the time we got over to the old theater the disassembling of the stage had resumed and the first truck was getting loaded up with furniture. We ran three truckloads of furniture over to the new theater and our last run was with the last of the stage platforms and two more of the big metal shelves for the props. I think there were close to 20 people helping out on Sunday, and I'll send the complete list out when we've filled in all the names.

The audience platforms are all up and ready to go, but we held off on moving those until next weekend, so the electricians can get all the conduit up in the auditorium for the house lights and stage light power before we make it impossible for them to use their fancy lift (which is a fun toy in itself).

Tonight we're going to continue putting the rest of the joists up for the tech booth, and maybe get the stairs in, as well as start assembling the wings, using the platforms from the old stage.

Thank you everybody who helped with the moving this weekend, as well as everybody who has been packing and helping build the new stage and tech booth. We've really gotten a lot done in the last two weeks.

dave

Thursday night, Christien Bumpus, Tracy Cathey, Ed Trujillo, Gary Hahn and I put tops on the audience platforms, secured the middles of the stage platforms, and had the occasional cordless drill duel.


Jason Jennings, Bryan Bumpus and Ron Revell finished securely attaching the back booth wall and the 2x12 band at the top that we'll nail the floor joists to. You can see some of the audience platforms in the foreground waiting to have their tops cut to length, while the ones that are already done are stacked in front of the stage, and Ron, Jason and Bryan are in the background laying the chalk line where the front wall of the booth will go.


Here are Ed, Gary, Tracy, Christien, Bryan, Jason and Ron at the end of the evening.


I expect that tonight we should be able to finish the audience platforms and get the front wall of the tech booth up along with at least some of the floor joists. We can do the rest of the joists and the stairs on Monday night, following with the plywood floor after that. We'll get the rest of the stage put in place before we finish tonight, so we'll be ready to move our stuff in on Saturday and Sunday.

I stopped by this morning to get a few measurements, figure out what else I need to buy and talked to the guy in charge of the main building work. The plumbers were supposed to be there first thing this morning and he's going to have them finish the cast bathroom first, so we'll have a clean working bathroom. The audience bathrooms have working fixtures but are still pretty grungy.

We met with the electrician and I gave him a copy of the plans showing where the house lights and the power for the stage lights go, and they were already starting to run conduit when I left. They are going to work on the house lights on Monday, so we'll hold off for a couple of days before we put the audience platforms in place - we can focus on completing the tech booth for the first few evenings next week.

When I left they were starting to haul out the junk they still had by the backstage wall, so that should all be cleared out by tonight. Tomorrow we can stack all the flats, doors, platforms and other stage stuff against the back wall, leaving room along the stage left back wall for the big prop shelves. We'll want to stack everything against the walls, so the air conditioning guys and the electricians can work. I'm hoping that they'll have the air conditioning done sometime next week, but the weather is going to affect when they can cut the holes in the roof to connect to the units that sit on top.

Jim and I are picking up the moving trucks this afternoon at 5:00, and tonight at 7:00 we'll be finishing construction at the new place while folks are continuing packing at the old place - the big prop shelves still need packing. Saturday morning we'll start loading the trucks at 10:00 and we'll probably run out of energy by 4 or 5. Sunday we'll start at noon.

Dave

On Tuesday Jason Jennings started cutting all the tech booth joists to length, while Richard, Gary Hahn, Geoff Rake, Jo Rake, Darold Hobbs and Nancy Hobbs assembled pieces of the tech booth walls.


Ed Trujillo, Tracy Cathey and I fastened the stage together, leaving a path for the air conditioning guys - you can see all the silver ductwork on the right side of the picture - and Nona and Cathleen finished removing all the nails from the tech booth joists.


During the day on Wednesday, Darold Hobbs and I cut and drilled all the pieces for the additional audience platforms.


That evening, Bryan Bumpus and Gary Hahn worked on securely attaching the tech booth's back supporting wall.


Christien Bumpus, Marvin Lansden, Darold Hobbs, Nancy Hobbs and I assembled the frames for the audience platforms.


Tonight we'll put the plywood tops on the audience platforms and continue putting up the tech booth walls. I'm hoping we'll also see more progress on the air conditioning - they put the units on the roof yesterday and hung a duct over the front rooms, but haven't done much in the auditorium or backstage yet. Until they've hung the ducts backstage, I don't want to attach the last row of platforms for the stage, since that seemed to be in their way. 

 

Richard Gruetzner helped me attach all the tops to the stage platforms tonight while Nona and Cathleen worked on removing nails from the tech booth 2x12's.  We're now ready to screw all the platforms together and then we'll have a stage.

Dave

This picture was taken from the backstage area. The auditorium is to the right.

Dave says ...

We made good progress last week.  On Monday, Gary Hahn and I got the shop all cleaned up, throwing out lots of trash and making room for lots of new wood.  On Tuesday, I picked up 144 2x4's, Cathleen Gruetzner helped me unload them, and that night Gary, Ron Revell and Darold Hobbs helped me cut and pre-drill all of the wood for the stage.  Wednesday night I loaded up half of the wood and Phiil Duprey helped me unload it all, then I got the first row of platforms built.   



On Thursday night, Cathleen helped me load thhe rest of the wood up, then Brent Jenkins and Cathleen helped me get all of the salvaged 2x12 joists for the tech booth moved out of the stage area and they started pulling nails from the 2x12's while I built more platforms.   

 

On Friday night, Cathleen, Nona Whittington, Gary Hamliton, Tracy Cathey and Ed Trujillo came to help and we got all of the rest of the stage platforms built and set the plywood tops on half of them.   

 

Today I'm picking up more wood - the rest of the plywood tops and the 2x4 studs for the tech booth as well as 2x4's for the extra audience platforms.  We'll be getting all the tops for the stage screwed on tonight and put the stage together, then start in on the audience platforms and if there are enough people we can also start cutting the joists to 10 feet long and nail together the stud walls that will hold up the tech booth.  Gary brought in his compressor and nail gun for the walls, so that part should go pretty quickly.  So there's lots of things that folks with any level of experience can do.  

We'll be at the new theater every night from 7-9 this week.  With enough help, we should have the stage ready, the tech booth standing, and the additional audience platforms done by this weekend, when we're moving everything over from Crystal Falls to the new place.  We're renting two big trucks and I've heard some folks say they might bring trailers, so with enough hands we can move a lot of stuff.

 Oh boy ... the stage is starting to take shape.  Dave says it was cool to be able to back the truck into the backstage area to unload the wood.  No more lugging lumber up a ramp and through a three foot door.

 

View Larger Map

This is the entrance.  Note the Texas star above the door. 

 

The lobby.  It's so big you could fit an apartment in there.  The doorway you see is the passage to the auditorium.  The Box Office and Concession Stand are to the right.

 

 

Speaking of the Box Office and Concession Stand ...

 

And here is the stage area taken from the auditorium.  The seating will be configured similarly to what we have now.  The stage, as note previously, will be a third wider than the current stage.  That will make the set designer's job a lot easier and allow for a better experience for the audience.

 

There's a lot more work to be done before Blame It On The Pony Express opens on August 6th and some of it will be done by volunteers like you.  The stage, seating, props, set pieces, costumes, everything all must be moved to the new theatre in 6 weeks between the time The Boys Next Door closes and the new theatre's doors are thrown open.  Contact us at MoveTheTheatre@wobcp.org  to find out how you can help.

They powerwashed the ceiling today to prep for installation of the insulation and painting of the exposed steelwork. The steel will be painted black. The ceiling insulation is also black. R30 and 9 1/2 inches thick. That should keep the noise down! Also, the front of the building that is not stone has been painted, light brown. So it is now ready for a mural. A BIG mural. Know where we can get a big, beautiful, free mural?

 

Barely one month after the first pictures, this is the front on the theatre as it looked on March 27, 2010.  The small door on the left side is gone and a new, larger door opening has been opened toward the middle of the building.

Don't forget to scroll down to our Wish List.  There are a lot of items that we need to complete this wonderful new theatre.  

That's Mike Elmore, the owner and primary benefactor of WOBCP's new theatre on the left and WOBCP President Phil Duprey on the right.  This picture was also taken on February 22, 2010.

It looks like it was a lunchroom.  On February 22nd it looked like this.  Just wait, soon it will be dressing rooms.

This is what the front of new theatre looked like on February 22nd.  When it is all done you won't recognize it.

 

As with all major projects for community theatres, we need a lot of "stuff" to complete the new theatre.  This is a list of things that we need for the new site.  If you have items you wish to donate, or if you want to find out how you can help, Click here.

• Lumber – plywood, 2x4, paneling, etc.
• Flooring – lobby, dance stage
• Lighting – chandeliers and sconces for lobby and auditorium
• Ceiling fans
• Marquee sign over entrance door Toilets and sinks to redo bathrooms
• Beverage cooler (sliding glass door)
• Soda fountain
• Ice machine Commercial sink for concessions area
• Commercial coffeemaker (2 or 3 pots)
• Rebuild of our rolling, lighted sign
• Office safe
• Lobby furniture
• Track lighting for lobby, art displays
• Seat Assignment Software
  • Will be provided on the website by the Web Site Manager
• Eyewash station for shop
• “Little Giant” articulated ladders
• Paint, paint brushes, rollers, tape
• Strong battery-powered reversible variable-speed drills
• Advertising 
• cash donations

 

The Leander Public Arts Committee voted unanimously to grant the Way Off Broadway Community Players $16,000 towards the build out of our new theater space in the 2243 Business Park (Mike Elmore, owner and landlord). The Leander City Council voted unanimously to commit the funds. After the legal agreement was drawn up between the City of Leander and WOBCP, the check was presented at the Council meeting on 01 April.

The following are pictured; Skip Dunnett, WOBCP Secretary, shaking hands with Leander Mayor John Cowman, and Phil Duprey, WOBCP President, and Kirsten Lynch, Councilmember holding the ceremonial check.

 

 

The floor plan for the new theatre has been revised.  Here's what we have now.  This floor plan increases the number of seats in the auditorium to 168.

This is a view of the new theatre looking toward what will be the stage.  

 

We finally have a long-term home! WOBCP has signed a 10-year lease for a much larger space in the 2243 Business Park, near the intersection of Bagdad Road and FM 2243 in Leander.

We've received great support from a number of people to make this happen. Our heartfelt thanks to the Leander Public Arts Committee, Leander Mayor John Cowman and the whole Leander City Council, Anthony “Biff” Johnson (Leander City Manager), Kirk Clennan and the whole Leander city staff, Mike Elmore (the property owner), Fred Deal (the lease broker) and Randy Syptak (the architect for the project developer). 

We will finish out this great season in our current location, with The Fantasticks, then Postmortem, and finally, in June, The Boys Next Door.  The first show of our regular season next year is Noises Off!.  The new theatre is an enormous advantage for staging that show; Noises Off! really calls for a large two-story set, and now that will be possible!

The first production in our new home will be the summer melodrama (and fundraiser). Be sure to join us for that, and for the rest of the season, as we celebrate our new home!

Once we're in our new space, we'll have a lot of capabilities we don't have now.
• There are two areas that can be used as rehearsal stages. This will make it a LOT easier to maintain overlapping production schedules!
• The main stage and both of the other large areas will have audiovisual equipment that can support rental by other groups for meetings, music and dance rehearsals and performances, and so on.
• We will have classroom space for performing arts training, such as theater-related workshops for adults and children.
• There will be display space for work by local artists and craftspeople.
• We can plan cultural events to draw participants and audiences from a wider area.

Keep watching this space.  We will be updating it on nearly a daily basis with new pictures and information.

This is the floorplan for the new theatre.  The stage is going to be 8 feet wider than the current stage and there will be seven more feet of room above the stage than we have now.

Significant construction progress continues to be made on our future home.  Here are a few details.

The front of our building will be stone on the left half, where the entrance is.  The other half will be metal - suitable for a decorative mural.  If you are an artist with the time to give we would love to talk to you about that project.
Inside, the major interior walls are going up - metal studs outline the major spaces.  There is lots of construction still to be done, but very visible progress, too.  And it's not quite April!
Today our benefactor, Mike Elmore and President Phil Duprey met with a rep from ADT.  Mr Elmore's company will take care of the fire alarm and its monitoring as well as the installation of fire sprinklers.  WOBCP will be responsible for the intrusion alarm for our own space.  The Leander grant includes an amount to cover that intrusion alarm system.
Also today, Mr. Duprey met an engineer who might do the overall site entrance sign.  It is planned to be a two-sided monument with eighty square feet of signage space on each side for tenant identification.  WOBCP will get ten square feet on each side.  We expect the monument sign to be internally illuminated.  WOBCP will have to provide the panels for that sign.

The official presentation by Leander of the PAC grant check to WOBCP is scheduled for the April 1st City Council meeting.  So, put 7 pm, April 1st on your calendar and attend if you can.  This is an historic event in the history of the Way Off Broadway Community Players.  

The Hill Country News published a very good article on our move.  Click here to read the article.

Some people have been asking for the exact address of the new theatre.  Here it is;

 

11880 W FM 2243
Leander, TX

 

To celebrate the opening of our new theatre for our 14th Season, we have moved "Noises Off" to be the First Show!  This  move will enable us to launch a bigger, larger stage production so you can fully enjoy "Noises Off".  We have replaced the final show of our 13th season in our current location with the very funny, very touching "The Boys Next Door". 

Here is some additional information about the new theatre.

It's almost 10,000 square feet, 50% bigger than the space at Crystal Falls, and the roof is 16 feet high, so it's 4 feet higher than we have now.  We're going to make the stage 8 feet wider, so it will be 32 feet wide and 24 feet deep.  We're making the wings 12 feet wide, so we'll have 4 more feet off stage right and finally have room off stage left.  There's a nice big room with a sink that we'll be able to use for the makeup/dressing/green room, and we'll have an attached cast bathroom.  We're combining the box office and the back office into a much larger room, and making box office and concessions easier and faster to set up and close down.  We're making the lobby and another room large enough to have rehearsals in, so it will be a lot easier to have several shows rehearsing at the same time.  We're making the auditorium large enough that we can accommodate future increases in our audience size.  And there's going to be a lot more room backstage for the shop and storage of flats, furniture and props.

The Way Off Broadway Community Players (WOBCP) have signed a ten-year lease for their new theater in the 2243 Business Park. We will complete our current season in June at the current location in the Crystal Falls Playhouse. Then, we will relocate during July and present the first production in our new home in August. The dream to find a long-term home has now been realized thanks to support from all the fans of the theater, from Mike Elmore of MPE Realty, and from the City of Leander. The new theater will feature a larger stage, stepped seating, a lobby designed to display local art, and spaces for use by other civic and performance groups.

We will update this page with progress on the preparation of the new theatre.  Check back regularly to watch the progress.  Better yet, volunteer your time to help WOBCP get the new theatre ready for August.

Just west of U.S. 183 in Leander on Hwy 2243.