As a professional theater company with a 32-year track record — and with Epstein Joslin Architects, the folks who developed Rockport's Shalin Liu Performance Hall, already on board — there is no shortage of creative minds already working on potential renovation plans for the Gloucester Stage Company's theater on East Main Street.
Indeed, while noting that they are not, in any way, building "another Shalin Liu," as architect Alan Joslin put it, it's fascinating to hear the conceptual ideas being tossed out by Joslin, Gloucester Stage Executive Director Andrew Burgreen and Board Chairwoman Bea Waring for better utilizing space below the stage and the theater's waterfront location, all coming without expanding the theater's capacity, or losing the three-sided seating configuration that so enhances the theater's intimacy.
Yet all connected with the theater deserve immense credit for reaching out to the community as a whole for input regarding what residents may want to see included as part of the project.
To that end, Joslin and theater officials are hosting workshops for the project this week, with the public invited to chime in Thursday from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the theater, in the heart of East Gloucester.
That workshop offers all the chance to play a very real role in shaping the future of one of Gloucester's true artistic resources. Let's hope it draws the interest and support it deserves.
