Places Everyone!
By Michael LoSchiavo
Construction is nearly completed and the Gracie's grand opening will be in October 2009 | Photo by Larry Ayotte
The curtain is about to rise on the Gracie Theater. NESCom and Husson will waste no time in putting it to use, as a production of West Side Story will be put on as its Grand Opening during Husson’s Homecoming weekend this fall. The structure will be unique to New England, and possibly even the country. “Not only is it a really nice theater,” says Ken Stack, an instructor at Husson and NESCom, “but it is a very, very high tech video and audio facility, it’s like a massive lab. Anything that happens on that stage can reach three different potential audiences; a live audience, a TV audience, and an audio audience.” The 500-seat theater will integrate the audio and video engineering programs, and is being built to enable on-site video and audio feeds. Stack said that while there are other theaters that have some of these features, it’s one of the only ones known that’s been designed and built from the ground up to integrate all this technology. “We’ve been going crazy trying to put this all together, because we’re almost creating this new animal, that hasn’t existed before.”
And while the Gracie will open a new platform to train NESCom students in several fields, the production of West Side Story is meant to be a celebration, and is going to be a community-wide event. “The purpose of this first production will be let’s just put on a show, have a great time doing it, and really showcase the Gracie to the community,” said Stack, who will be stage director for the show, “It’s going to be a great blend of students, a great blend of actors, semi-professionals and all kinds of people.” Casting for the show will be open to the public, and the pit orchestra will feature members of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. Auditions will be held later this month and people trying out will need to bring a song from West Side Story to sing at the audition, and will be given a piece to dance to by choreographers. Rehearsals will begin in August, and the performance dates are October 16th, 17th, and 18th.
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