MARYSVILLE — The Red Curtain Foundation for the Arts might not be as visible as it was in the old Dunn Lumber building, but it’s building a more stable future for itself.
“Back at the Dunn Lumber building, we were on a month-to-month lease,” foundation board secretary Beckye Randall said at the new location in the back of the Marysville Goodwill building. “But here, we’ve got a seven-year lease, with two five-year options for renewal, so we’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
Red Curtain is set to reopen Sept. 1, through ongoing fundraising efforts that recently saw the Tulalip Tribes contribute $7,500.
Although the front lobby might not be polished by the date of its opening, Randall promised that features such as the stage, bathrooms, exits, heating and air conditioning would all be in place by then.
Foundation board president Scott Randall elaborated that the new 22-by-50-foot stage will include seating for as many as 200 people, doubling the audience capacity of its previous stage.
“More than half of our plays at the old building wound up being sold out because we simply didn’t have enough room,” Scott said. “This allows us to put on more plays, with larger casts.”
Although the new art center technically offers about the same amount of space — roughly 12,000 square feet — Scott pointed out how much less “dead space” there is in the new location. It includes a green room and construction shop, and also boasts an entire upper floor for prop and costume storage, with a new costumer from Western Washington University expanding the latter collection.
“Before, we basically had one room to do all our work in,” Scott said. “Now, we can conduct up to three different events at the same time. This will allow us to run multiple rehearsals and classes.”
Indeed, the upstairs area has enough space that Scott is considering setting up a space for post-production audience receptions or spoken-word open-mic nights.
The Randalls hope that their guarantee of greater stability will encourage “founding donors” to chip in anywhere from $100 to $10,000 to have their names enshrined in the wall of the front lobby.
