No assembly required

By HEIDI GAISER

FVCC's new black-box theater anything can happen

The Daily Inter Lake

While audiences attended plays for 14 years in classroom space at Flathead Valley Community College's Learning Resource Center, they might have been transported to another world by the on-stage drama, but they could never quite escape the institutional surroundings of chalkboards, video monitors and stark white walls.

But when the lights go out at the new black-box theater at Flathead Valley Community College, "suddenly anything becomes possible," said Joe Legate, FVCC theater program director. "We're only limited by our creativity. This space can be anything we'd like it to be."

The state-of-the-art theater, located in the college's new Arts and Technology Building, was unveiled earlier this month with the first performance of the comedy "Play On!"

The production, whose opening night was put off by construction delays, also was the inaugural show for a new program, FVCC Summer Theatre. The company, made up of 30 high school and college students from throughout the Flathead Valley, followed that up with the children's play "Jack and the Giant."

The season is wrapping up with the musical "Bye Bye Birdie," which opened Friday and runs through Aug. 25.

The splashy "Bye Bye Birdie" is an unprecedented event for the college because such an extravagant show could not have been done on the old 20-by-20-foot stage.

For 14 years, each FVCC play was produced in a space that encompassed four classrooms. The stage took up the bulk of one classroom and dividing walls were taken down for seating in the other three.

"Every show, on Friday afternoon we'd meet, put away the walls and the tables, move in the audience platforms and arrange them," Legate said. "Then after the Sunday matinee, we'd take everything down and put everything back. We got our exercise, but it wasn't pleasant - lots of lifting, grunting, pulling and hauling."

It also created some real construction challenges as set-building had to be done outside or in a classroom, and no permanent storage was available for sets and props.

"You could see the maintenance people grimace when you walked into a classroom with a handsaw or an open can of paint," Legate said. "There was always dust in the air - all the things that come into construction."

No assembly is required with the new theater. Built in typical black-box style with a high ceiling but intimate feel, it has the capacity to seat up to 200 and the seats can be placed into whatever configuration suits the production. It also has a costume and property shop, a scene shop, two offices, a green room (where the actors gather before the show) and - a real luxury - men's and women's dressing rooms, with showers.

"People all have stories about dressing in the hallways on the way to the show, and then waving to the audience on their way to the stage," Kurt Duffner, an alumnus of the FVCC theater program and the musical director for "Bye Bye Birdie."

"Now we have a dressing room instead of a custodian's closet," said Mike Legate, a fellow FVCC alumni and current sound engineer with the company.

Mike Legate, whose father is Joe Legate, designed the sound system. He recently earned a Master of Fine Arts in Sound Design and Technology from the University of Nebraska.

The catwalk above the audience is filled with giant speaker cases and sub-woofers, and cables run to a maze of amplifiers and computerized playback systems.

Having access to technology such as that used in the sound system is the real coup for theater students, said Joe Legate, giving them experience in using the latest technologies in sound and lighting.

"It was wise for the school to invest in the technical end," Joe Legate said. "This is where students will learn the most."

Duffner, who earned his master's degree in musical theater from the University of Montana, said the technical aspects of the FVCC theater surpass those of even the Missoula school.

"Students will have such an advantage at a two-year college before even going on to a big university," Duffner said.

Legate is a strong believer in a well-rounded drama education, which will be enhanced considerably by the technological capabilities of the new facility and through programs such as the new summer theater company.

"If you're an actor, you need to know what the technical crew goes through," he said. "If you want to be a technician, you need to realize what it's like to be on stage and see how vulnerable an actor is."

But the theater enhances more than the FVCC drama program. The audience also is a major beneficiary.

"It's really cool to be a part of this place opening up," said Jillian Vashro, artistic director for "Jack and the Giant."

"The response from the community has been amazing. It's fun to watch them walk through the door for the first time and look around and take everything in."

"Bye Bye Birdie" continues Aug. 23 through 25 at 7 p.m. each day, with an additional 2 p.m. show Aug. 25. Tickets cost $15 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors, and can be purchased from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday at the FVCC bookstore, or by calling 756-3814.

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com