Stage Set For Eastside Theater Boom -- Company To Join Thriving Drama Scene

REDMOND

A cappucino-hawking Arkansas gas station was recently noted by The Wall Street Journal as evidence that arts and culture are on the rise in mainstream America.

It's hard to beat backwater baristas, but you could illustrate the same phenomenon with the Eastside's burgeoning theater scene. Shows are packed, workshops are full and a theater is opening alongside the shops and offices at Redmond Town Center.

"We're growing so rapidly it's crazy - and it's wonderful," said Lani Brockman, who started Kirkland's Studio East theater six years ago.

Two former Studio East performers broke ground Sunday for the SecondStory Repertory, a professional theater company planning a year-round schedule of drama, children's shows, music and arts education.

When it opens in the spring, SecondStory will join a thriving Eastside drama scene that ranges from funky community productions to traveling spectacles at glistening new performance centers.

In addition to offering hundreds of shows a year to adults, the theater companies are introducing drama to audiences of the future through after-school programs, summer camps and sold-out children's productions.

"It's just broadening people's exposure to the arts and educating them in different ways," said Melna Skillingstead, arts coordinator for the city of Redmond.

SecondStory is the creation of theater jocks Stan Gill and Jennifer Reif, both of whom are teachers with professional stage backgrounds. Gill started several theater companies in the Midwest and on the East Coast before moving to the Northwest five years ago.

He and Reif met at Studio East while producing shows from a series of children's plays written by Gill called "Sprouts." Growing demand for shows and drama education persuaded them to launch their own theater.

"The market was so great for it we outgrew the space," Gill said. "We needed a bigger, classier space for what we do."

He and Reif said it was a challenge to find an affordable building, but Town Center was enthusiastic about a tenant that would draw people to the shopping center.

SecondStory is planning a 170-seat theater in a 3,400-square-foot space on the upper level, next to Borders Books & Music. Reif heads a nonprofit group that so far has raised about $200,000 toward SecondStory's $410,000 startup costs.

"If I came to this greater Seattle area and was doing research, looking for the place this theater should go, that's where I would choose to put it," Gill said.

SecondStory will offer performances 50 weeks a year, Gill predicts, including five adult shows and five children's shows a year, and musical performances and productions by teenagers in the theater's apprenticeship program.

"Microsoft and a lot of other Eastside businesses have a lot of Generation X people, so a lot of what we do will be catered toward them," Reif said.

Meanwhile, other Eastside theater groups are growing as well. Studio East is raising money to enlarge its building because its classes and shows are full.

"We're doing what we want to do; they're doing what they're doing. There's plenty of market to go around," Brockman said.

Like Gill and Reif, Brockman also teaches drama in schools. Gill recently filled in for Woodinville High School's drama teacher, Reif teaches drama to home-schooled students in the Bellevue and Lake Washington school districts, and Brockman teaches workshops and hosts field trips.

Studio East has a 123-seat theater in a 5,300-square-foot former warehouse on Sixth Street South in Kirkland, behind the Municipal Court.

It also stages larger shows at the city's new performing-arts center, where it recently added two shows to its sold-out production of "Winnie the Pooh."

The combination of growing population and increased interest in the arts also fills Studio East's summer camps for children 4 to 15. This summer it had 33 sessions, all full with 30 kids apiece, up from 25 sessions the year before and 16 in 1996.

Others offering children's theater programs include Youth Theatre Northwest on Mercer Island, Seattle Children's Theatre and Village Theatre in Issaquah. The IKEA Family Stage at the Theater at Meydenbauer Center aims its performances at children and their parents.

Brockman first saw the need for more Eastside theater 10 years ago when she began staging plays at Kirkland Junior High. The first year had 40 kids, the next 80 and the year after that 120.

She said few participants will likely become professional actors, but drama education gives them confidence and communication skills that are increasingly important as they spend more time with computers and less interacting with real people.

"Even if you don't go into the dramatic arts," she said, "you'll be able to make a presentation with confidence in whatever else you do."