The Winchester Star

Article date: April 6, 2007 

Wayside to raise curtain at Avtex 

By: Joe Farruggia, Byrd Newspapers

Front Royal — Wayside Theatre was welcomed enthusiastically on Thursday in Front Royal, where a large portion of its 2007-08 season productions will be presented while renovations are under way at the theater in Middletown.

Stephen A. Brown, president of the Wayside Foundation for the Arts, said he was pleased that the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority “stepped forward and allowed us to begin the conversation that led to this terrific partnership.”

The EDA has agreed to allow Wayside to present regular productions, as well as young performers’ productions, in a large auditorium in the former administration building of Avtex Fibers, now known as Royal Phoenix.

The first production of Wayside’s 2007-08 season, “Forever Plaid,” will open at the Royal Phoenix on June 24.

But Brown added that not all of the productions for the coming season will take place in Front Royal.

Shenandoah University’s Glaize Studio Theatre will be used as a performance venue in August, and a Young Performers’ Workshop production written and performed by children will be held in October at the Old Courthouse Civil War Museum in Winchester.

“We plan, contingent upon the vagaries of construction, that we will be performing the latter portion of our subscription season back in Middletown,” Brown said.

EDA executive director Paul Carroll welcomed Wayside to Royal Phoenix, noting that Thursday's announcement, like the redevelopment of the former Avtex industrial site, was “the culmination of ongoing cooperation” between numerous parties.

Carroll and Wayside’s artistic director, Warner Crocker, acknowledged the role of Jorie Martin, the EDA’s assistant director and a former member of Wayside’s governing board, in working out the arrangements between the EDA and Wayside.

Crocker said this year marks “an exciting and adventurous time in the life of Wayside Theatre.”

As the company moved closer to the beginning of renovations at the theater in Middletown, along with the addition of a new wing to that building, Crocker said “a number of scenarios” were explored “that would allow us to move forward with our 46th season rather than simply going dark.”

The three-venue scenario was chosen, he said, because it is important for Wayside to operate multiple venues and to “expand or die,” due to the rising costs of the theater business and the need to seek funding beyond ticket sales.

“If Wayside Theatre is to survive,” he said, “it must grow.”

Work will begin next week on converting the room at Royal Phoenix into a performance area and a portion of the adjacent wing into a lobby and concession area similar to Wayside’s Curtain Call Café in Middletown.

By the end of April, after the close of the current production of “Stones in His Pockets,” asbestos abatement and demolition will begin at the Middletown theater.

The 2007-08 season will open on June 24 at Royal Phoenix with “Forever Plaid.”

The second show, “Tuesdays with Morrie,” will begin on Aug. 10 in the Glaize Studio Theatre at SU.

The third show to be held at Royal Phoenix will be the world premiere of ”Shadow of the Raven: The Stories of Edgar Allan Poe,” a musical mystery by Wayside Theatre’s resident music director and composer, Steve Przybylski. It will open on Oct. 13.

The fourth production will be the third of the Sanders Family trilogy, “Sanders Family Homecoming,” and it will begin performances on Jan. 26, 2008, at the Leo M. Bernstein Wayside Theatre in Middletown.

The fifth show of the season, “Driving Miss Daisy,” will also be held in Middletown, beginning on April 5, 2008.

This year’s Christmas show, which is not part of the regular season, will be “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play,” beginning on Nov. 23 at the Royal Phoenix.