What Went Wrong and Caused the Firehouse Theater to Close

• My inexperience and optimism.
• Underestimated costs.
• Started without enough crew and key people.
• Assumed the neighbors would come to shows. They did not.
• Assumed the families of actors would come regularly. Didn't.
• Started shows before stage, lights, curtain and procedures were done.
• Did not take time off from constant shows to work on publicity, stage, procedures, organizing.
• Did not crack down on actors who weren't trying hard enough.
• Let someone's theater debt build while I struggled to pay the bills.
• Local Newspaper Entertainment Editors do not go see shows, yet decide which theater directors to interview about their upcoming show.
• I averaged about two volunteers at any time, rarely more, often zero especially at first.
• Yet we did over 75 different shows, many of them very good.
• Most of the time there were more people on stage than in the audience.

This page is under construction. More added soon.

Firehouse Theater Home Page

March 29, 2010
I officially left the building Feb. 17. I peeled off scotch tape, patched and painted the walls, had the carpets cleaned. I have paid all my rent and utilities.

Sat. Feb 6
We did not get enough ticket sales to pay the bills. December's "A Christmas Carol" show lost money. January shows covered utilities but not enough for February's rent. I had to use my family's money to pay the back rent, and that is what I swore not to do anymore.

I asked and asked for people to come to shows, to pledge to come to future shows, to rent space in the building, to do shows here. I got very little response. I think I've been on the brink of closing so many times but pulled through, that people didn't believe me now, they think I was just complaining before. There was also a person who ran up a huge theater debt to me last year and that didn't help my finances, in fact, it explains a lot.

As of yesterday, Saturday, Feb. 6, we have removed the costumes, props, most of the furniture, the lights, grid, curtains, and stage carpet and are starting to dismantle the proscenium. A theater group willing to put all that back together could still waltz in here, pay the rent and have it all, but on Tuesday, Habitat for Humanity will take away the platforms and lumber and this will go back to being an empty building.

I would like to thank the parents and actors who worked on shows and came to see those shows. I would like to especially thank the few people who came to other shows and helped me ongoing. I will thank them personally.

I will write up details and add to the History of the Firehouse and Past Shows page, which has a link above, in two weeks, maybe. Right now I have plenty of work dismantling the platforms and proscenium and getting the rest of the stuff out. And I still need to paint and clean. I'd appreciate help with that.

Thank you Rachel and my family for helping me haul out all those costumes, props and furniture, load after load. And thank you Al for helping get the lights down and for catching me when my ladder tipped off the platform.

If you are feeling sad, so am I. Go look at the History page or check out the photos. And come back in a few weeks and I'll put up more photos that I never had time to do before. And I'll have time to make DVDs of most of the 75 past shows we did here, so if you were in a cast, hopefully I'll be sending a DVD notice to you soon. And I'll be going back into video production.

This has been a learning experience for me to put it mildly. I will write up what I think I did wrong, what I couldn't control, what I did not understand and the story of the Firehouse Theater's 3.5 year life.

Thanks,
-- Jeannette Jaquish