Davis Square Theater?

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

I was interested to see this, earlier - is this actual news or have we discussed this recently? I've been a little out of touch.

Davis Square has a rock club now?

Apparently, the former Jimmy Tingle's theater is going to be a live music / comedy venue with a full bar, in addition to hosting the Actor's Shakespeare Project? It's not the most dry-fact filled article, I'm afraid. 

Comments

[ron_newman]

Actors' Shakespeare Project is a peripatetic theatre company. They may or may not ever return to this particular space for another show.

The rock club is news to me as well, but I think it's a great addition to the square.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like I said, Not a Fact Filled Article, really. I saw Merry Wives there, and loved the show, but thought the venue was terrible. I'm hardly the demographic for live music, but it's nice to think that the venue will get some use and improvement.

[ron_newman]

I didn't get to that show. Can you tell us more about why it was a bad venue for Shakespeare?

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

It had obstructed seating for probably 70% of the attendees. It was okay, but there were a very few seats with a direct view to the stage, and there was a lot of the stage blocked for me at different points. I'm glad I tried it once.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Too many obstructed seats. It was a pretty active performance, and I felt like at least 20% of the time I missed something because I was seated directly in line with a floor-to-ceiling support beam. Something like comedy or music might not be so bad - it would depend on how much the performers are moving and how many of them, and where they stand on the stage. But if you've been in the room, you could see that probably a good 15-20% of the audience would be parallel to or actually behind most of the players.

[ursamajor]

I don't know if it's been discussed here too much recently, but the Foundry people were planning this when they took over the entire complex in 2010.

[benign-cremator.livejournal.com]

Yes, they do. Well, sort of. It is not laid-out as a rock club. Saloon, the pub in the front of the basement space, does not have stage space setup for bands and the focus of the room is the bar, and it is otherwise one of the nicest pubs I have seen outside of London (I used to raise the wrist at the Royal Oak in Whitehall). The main stage space is also not setup like a rock club **, but like a working theater (bar in the lobby, rowed seating, little or no dancing space, stage setup as a proscenium/thrust with curtained exits, proper green room and dressing rooms with facilities - seriously, one of the few spaces that I have worked with toilets and a shower in the dressing rooms). You can certainly do rock shows there and do them well (I am currently running a show with a 4 piece Jazz band), but that is not its strength. This space is much more about focusing on the performance then taking a performance in as an environment to be what I really think of as a rock club. And that is a good thing. Oh, and it truly shines when you mix live music with a performance (IMHO). All of that said, it is one of the quirkier, and funner, venues I have worked in.

** rock clubs usually have the bar integrated with the performance space to allow people to cycle through several times during a performance, an open dancing space, blank stage, and spaced seating often with tables to allow people to move between them, no or minimal dressing rooms, often no green room. They are about making the music an environmental experience to facilitate one moving easily between the bar and the dance floor.

[ron_newman]

What show are you running at this theatre now?

[benign-cremator.livejournal.com]

Unlucky in Love, the Boston Babydolls Burlesque show.

[ron_newman]

Their website is http://DavisSquareTheatre.com . Only two shows listed right now -- the current Boston Babydolls burlesque, followed by "A live supernatural serial" called Blood Rose Rising.

[laryu.livejournal.com]

In case you're interested, Blood Rose Rising is currently raising funds on Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/958844699/blood-rose-rising-a-live-supernatural-series), but time is running out.

[ron_newman]

If time runs out, is there a danger that the show won't open as scheduled this month?