04/03/2017
Dear Friends of the Carriage House Theatre,
March is a time we all look forward to, because it means the announcement of the upcoming Carriage House Theatre summer season. March is come and gone now, and so it's high time you heard from us. This year, however, the announcement is of a different kind: After six years and twenty five productions, the Carriage House Theatre is closing its doors. The reasons are several, from shifting dynamics with neighbors to safety and insurance concerns, but let us not pore over reasons, for we have much to celebrate and remember.
The Carriage House Theatre has always been about community, and in it community thrived. The rustic simplicity, the age, the warm, earthy atmosphere that the building evokes drew us all in and cracked us out of our everyday 21st century shells. It was not a place of modern convenience, but it was one of great comfort. Many of us along the way did our best to let the building itself inform our work, creating a cohesive path and a familiarity that came to be beloved by artists and audience alike. From Buried Child to Phèdre, Office Hours to The Cat Who Ran, the carriage house lent its magic to every story we told, and gave us a rich playground in which to experiment and entertain. The people, of course, made it a community too. Many of us called the Carriage House Theatre our artistic home, and were blessed with audiences who faithfully returned summer upon summer. I cannot count the number of conversations I've had with friendly faces, faces I know well as returning audience members despite never knowing their names. These conversations, about stories and art and life, are the fabric of community.
Thank you for participating in this journey we've been on, in whatever large or small way you have. Though the Carriage House Theatre is gone, the energy of its community lives on, spread among us, traveling outward in as many directions as there are people who shared the experience of this place.
We would like to invite you to one final event at the carriage house, a farewell reception, on Sunday, April 23rd from 4-6 pm. Stop by, look at pictures of old productions, reminisce, sign a memory guestbook, and enjoy refreshments. We will send out one more email the week of the event to remind you.
A reminder: Spinning Dot Theatre, which has shared the carriage house with us for the past three years, is very much not gone! They have already been performing in many other venues, and continue to do so with vigor, so follow them on facebook, check their website, and keep up with them wherever they go. And of course, nearly all of the artists you've seen at the Carriage House Theatre over the years are doing great work at other great theaters in the area, so seek them out!
Thank you, all of you.
Forrest Hejkal, Founder
