Talk about a tough choice. Finding a new home for the Musical Comedy Guild took some serious searching.
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The community theater group had to move from its former rehearsal and storage space in the former St. Ignatius Catholic Church on Cathcart Street. The owner of this building has other plans for the space. If the MCG wanted to stay, the rent would be increased.
Spokeswoman Louise Stephens followed leads gleaned from previous media coverage, but vanished until she found an online listing for 258 Wellington St.W.
” “I was going through everything I could find and following each thread of articles,” she told the Salt Star in a recent interview. We were feeling dry.
He rented what a 60-year-old community theater group could afford and had a large enough space for two standing challenges before finding a storefront near Huron Street. Stephens said it took him “hours and hours and hours and hours” to find a suitable place. “None of them came, but then we found this place.”
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Chris Moore, the group’s commercial director, had been “doing the same operation” before Stevens became the group’s leader.
The rehearsal space on the ground floor is 1,200 square feet, about the size of the Sault Community Theater Center minus an apron or exit space for the audience. There is approximately 3,000 additional square feet in the basement for storage and construction. The sink and sink can be used to clean the brushes. The space is heated with natural gas.
MCG has signed a two-year lease with the possibility of extension with Cheteri Properties in the Greater Toronto Area. The occupation takes effect on August 1st.
” It’s a little smaller than we’d prefer,” Stephens from the practice area said. “We can afford it. It’s clean. It’s dry. It’s big enough.”
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She refused to release the rent paid, but said the monthly amount was less than the new rent that would have been charged if the MCG had remained in the former Catholic French parish.
” Stephens said it was a reasonable price for us. “We are really, really happy to be in a place with such a good owner.”
There are stairs from the basement to a double door on the main level to move display equipment.
Car parking for cast and crew is available at the rear of the building and near Municipal Square and Wellington Street West.
” Nico Mackintosh, production liaison, said: “We can now move forward.
The main cast members of the band’s fall production, Fiddler on the Roof, will reunite in the rehearsal room beginning in early August before the “full” setting to the music, with songs like If I Were a Rich Man and Sunrise, Sunset begins after Labor Day.
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” Stephens said to find a new space. “We had to get out of St. Ignatius just as we were about to start rehearsals full scale. It happened at the right time. The owners of St. Ignatius have plans to build their house and they need us to get out of it. We are very lucky to have found a good place to call our own.”
Fiddler’s cast includes Brian Miller (Les Miserables, 42Abbreviation II Street), Lauren Kroll (A Christmas Story) and Aaron Fisher, grandson of MCG Live member Tomira Sierzbotowski. She was the late owner of Tomira’s wedding dresses.
CWM’s Steelton House can accommodate shows on a smaller scale. Stephens is keen for the group to have a profile that goes beyond two major annual productions.
Two to three dehumidifiers and thirty pallets are needed in the basement. Anyone who can help can send an email mcgsault@gmail.com.
On Twitter: @Saultreporter
