VENICE, Fla. — Construction work has commenced towards repairing the historic Venice Theatre. The theater's management has also kicked off plans to set up a makeshift location so that the entire performance season is not lost.
Hurricane Ian ripped out part of the roof and walls of the theater. It destroyed equipment and furnishing worth thousands of dollars. The storm also nearly jeopardized jobs.
Technical crews with the theater have begun converting a space in the Raymond Center, which is in one of three buildings on the Venice Theatre campus. They are transforming it into a temporary theater while the main one is being repaired.
"We had 432 seats in our main stage, which was damaged. This will be 124 seats," said Laurie Colton, who is head of marketing and public relations at the theatre.
Crews have built a new stage and painted it black. They have set up spotlights above the stage and filled the hall with seats that have been affixed to a built-in riser.
"We definitely had a lot of worries of people thinking that the theater may close down, that they might lose their jobs, and our board of directors and our executive director were so adamant about keeping this theater alive," said Colton.
Around 1,500 volunteers are helping to bring the theater roaring back to life.
"Our machines and most of what we can pull out of the theater we have moved in the Raymond Center," said Ross Boehringer, the costume shop manager at the theater.
They've created a new costume shop after the main one was damaged by the storm.
A Texas-based company retrieved the ruined costumes and is trying to salvage some of them.
"They're having them all cleaned there and they're going to bring them all back to us on hangers," said Boehringer.
As they create new costumes, await new equipment and anticipate new playbills ahead of the reopening, the engineering team plans to upgrade the theater to new code standards so it can weather future hurricanes.
"This was a tragedy, we are obviously devastated that the building had so much damage but this is an opportunity to rebuild and rebuild better," Colton said.
Shows and activities will return to the theater's temporary location in November including holiday performances scheduled for December.
The theater will open the season with a smaller version of its annual "Christmas Carol" in December while the Pinkerton theater is expected to reopen in early spring.