Thinking inside the box: Old Creamery turning empty school rooms into Studio Stage and more

By Diana Nollen

Community spirit is entering a new stage at the Middle Amana school complex.

A building with many faces, it is the current home of Amana Elementary, the former home of Clear Creek Amana Middle School and the longtime home of the Amana Community Library and Amana Community Pool. It's also the site of the Old Creamery Theatre's new 80-seat Studio Stage in the former band room.

When the floods of 2008 swamped the Old Creamery's smaller Depot Stage in Amana, the troupe's search for a new home for its intimate Studio Series found a temporary fix in the basement of the Ox Yoke Inn restaurant.

Then a series of moves within the Clear Creek Amana School District opened new doors of opportunity.

“When the high school was built in Tiffin, the middle school went to the old high school, which opened up the home ec room, shop, band room and art room” in the Middle Amana school complex, says Tom Milligan, 59, of East Amana, the Old Creamery's newly appointed producing director.

At the suggestion of a school board member, Old Creamery and Clear Creek Amana school district officials spent most of the summer ironing out the details for the two entities to share the space, using a 28(e) agreement.

While such cooperative agreements generally are made between governmental agencies to broaden offerings and share costs of such things as opening a town library, Iowa code does allow 28(e) agreements between public and private agencies. That paved the way for the school district to team up with the non-profit theater troupe.

The Old Creamery is leasing the space for $200 a month, which Milligan says will mostly help with utility costs, and the theater is providing in-kind services to the school district, including performing its touring shows for Clear Creek Amana students and sharing the band room/new black box theater with the elementary band students two days a week. The new performance space also could be used for such things as piano recitals and elementary programs, Milligan says.

“Here's the exciting part,” he adds. “We have a partnership worked out with Clear Creek Amana High School, lending them our expertise building sets and advising them, like an outreach program. Education has become really big for us, with all the camps.”

Amana Elementary Principal Ben Macumber, who worked for the Old Creamery as an actor and stage manager from 1991 to 2000, is excited about the sharing prospects, too.

“I'm hoping to take all the grades down there so they can see it,” he says of the new Studio Stage. “We're hoping to provide internships for the high school students, as well.”

He's enthusiastic about the physical changes, too.

“I go down there once a day to check on the progress,” says Macumber, 40, of Amana. “It amazes me how fast the work and the business of the theater are. I see changes every day. It's very fascinating.

“It's exciting to be part of that - and watching that without having to put in the effort myself,” he says with a laugh.

The Creamery is not only gaining a new performance venue, it also is gaining storage room for props and furniture, as well as construction and storage space for costumes and scenery, all on one level. Milligan says the troupe had been paying about the same fee for storage and rehearsal space on several levels in a building behind the Amana Woolen Mill.

Turning the former school band room into a black box theater didn't come free or easy, however.

“When we decided to do this, we knew there was going to be an expense in making this transition and the money wasn't necessarily already in the budget,” Milligan says. “I said to everybody, I'm not unlocking the key until we have the $5,000 to $10,000 raised to do the transition.”

About a month and a half later, the Creamery's board and theater patrons had raised $10,000.

“It really is a new beginning for our studio series,” Milligan says. “It shows a commitment from people wanting to get the studio back, but also in the transition from what we used to be into new management and leadership and a new direction. It shows a lot of confidence by the people ready to get behind us.”

So with the money and plan in place, Creamery staff and volunteers began in January to sort, weed out and move items from the former storage space to the new digs, as well as prepare the performance space for the opening of “The Glass Menagerie” on April 8, 2010.

“We want people to really feel like they're walking into a theater, not a band room,” Milligan says. “We've hung these wonderful black draperies. The room is now completely draped - all four walls. We're putting down a new floor to look like hardwood, we just installed six different lighting positions, bought a new light system and we're buying a new sound system. We had the chairs, but we bought new covers.”

The chairs will not be bolted down, so they can be moved to accommodate different staging configurations. The seating area also is handicapped accessible.

“The great challenge for directors will be how to use this space,” he says. “It's an open space, so you can use it any way you want. It's a blank slate.”

‘Glass Menagerie' launches Old Creamery's new stage collection

 The Old Creamery Theatre is christening its new 80-seat Studio Stage with an American theater classic as timely today as when it premiered in 1944.

“The Glass Menagerie,” by celebrated playwright and University of Iowa graduate Tennessee Williams, opens the inaugural series

from April 8 to 25, 2010, in the new black box theater in the former middle school band room at 3023 220th Trl., Middle Amana. The season continues with the comedy “Red, White and Tuna” from Aug. 19 to Sept. 5, 2010, and Edward Albee's searing drama, “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” from Sept. 30 to Oct. 17, 2010.

In designing the studio series, director Tom Milligan of East Amana says the Creamery is looking for “the type of show we wouldn't take the risk of putting on the mainstage. They're shows that emphasize the scripts and acting much more than the production values - we're not slighting the production values, they're just not the most important thing.

“We have a season of two American classics and the third ‘Tuna' play - pieces that emphasize the acting ability of the people, the scripts themselves and have a little bit of an edge to them.”

“The Glass Menagerie,” thought to be an almost autobiographical play by Williams, explores themes still in play today, as the Wingfield family moves through its dysfunctional haze. The father walked out on them years ago, leaving son Tom stuck supporting his mother, Amanda, and crippled sister, Laura, by working in a dead-end factory job while he pines to be a writer. Amanda is desperate to marry off her painfully shy daughter, but lives in the past, droning on and on about the number of suitors she entertained in her rose-colored youth.

Their lives are as fragile as Laura's collection of glass animals.

“He was talking about a period of time coming out of the Depression,” Milligan says of the playwright. “We see a family talking about their lights possibly getting shut off, and they do get shut off. It's middle-level poverty and they have to deal with it in one way or another. The mother is living in the past so much that she can't get to the future.

“It's typical of families stuck in that place where they can't make enough money. (Characters like Tom) end up saying ‘I could do this, but I can't do this because I haven't done that.'”

The intimate space of the new theater lends itself especially well to “Menagerie,” in which the narrator, Tom, is desperately seeking a way out.

“Part of the fun of staging this in the limited space we have is that (his family's) apartment does become like a jail cell he wants to break out of,” Milligan says. “They're living on top of each other, which just adds to everyone's frustration.

“The girl can't continue on in typing school because she gets so nervous. If this play were done today, Amanda would be on match.com,” looking for a suitor for Laura.

“Part of what good theater is - is themes so universal they continue on no matter where you're at,” Milligan says.

The cast includes three actors who have appeared on Old Creamery stages before, and one newcomer.

Cheryl Black of Columbia, Mo., will portray the mother, Amanda. She and her husband, LR Hults, starred in the studio show “Henry and Ellen” in June 2008. Belle Plaine native Jonesy McElroy, who now lives and works in Los Angeles, is returning as Tom. Among his previous Creamery roles is Mozart in “Amadeus.” Patrick McGee of New York City, last seen in “Clue: The Musical,” will play the gentleman caller, Jim. And in the role of Laura is Emily Peterson of Kansas City, Mo., making her first appearance with the company.

“‘The Glass Menagerie' is one of the first things I saw in high school, when a professional company came through Des Moines,” Milligan says. “I've always loved the script. It gives four very good actors the chance to display their acting chops. It's an American classic. One of the things that happens with these classics is that they're done in college or high school, and we don't see them done in professional theaters with characters the right ages.

“When we're talking about ‘Glass Menagerie' or ‘Virginia Woolf,' everybody's eyes light up,” he says. “They know the quality we do, and to combine ‘Tuna' with these two pieces is really exciting.”

 FAST TAKEOpen house: 5 to 7 p.m. April 9, 2010, to celebrate the new Studio Stage; free and open to the public. No reservations needed for the open house, but tickets are needed to attend that night's performance.

What: “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams

When: April 8 to 25, 2010; 3 p.m. Thursdays and Sundays; 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays

Where: Old Creamery Theatre Company's new Studio Stage in the former Clear Creek Amana Middle School band room, 3023 220th Trl., Middle Amana

Tickets: $22.50 adults, $15.50 students

Rated: PG

Information: 1-(800) 35-AMANA or www.oldcreamery.com for tickets, directions to the new stage or more information