Village Squire, 1973-06, Page 4Huron's theatre in a farmyard
begins its second season
Jim Murphy in front of the barn.
1
The evening of July 11 this yard will
be the lively scene of opening night of
the Huron Country Playhouse's second
season, but today in early June as Jim
Murphy shows the visitors around the
site, its not much more than a cleaned
up barnyard. •
He leads the way through the old
barn pointing out the work done by
workers who spent the winter under a
local Initiatives Project grant helping
turn the barn into an arts centre.
"Here," he says pointing to a rustic
corner where cows used to roam, "will
be the bar, hopefully, and concession
area. You can see where the bazaar
was held," (local ladies sponsored a
bazaar on Sunday early in June to help
raise funds for the theatre). Hundreds
of people, Mr. Murphy says, attended
the event even though it was raining.
He leads the way around the building
pointing out the new rest rooms, the
patio area, the art gallery upstairs, the
actors quarters, the scenery shop, the
rehearsal area and other points of inter-
est.
"The carpenters will be here next
week," he says, and they will finish the
work the LIP work drs couldn't do. "We've
got a month to get it ready for opening
night".
He sounds confident, but to the unin-
itiated it still looks pretty much like
a barn, definitely a clean, unsmelly
barn, but still a barn.
But then that's what Jim Murphy wants
it to be. He and those connected with
the theatre have considered converting
the barn to a theatre but so far haven't
been able to fine) an engineer who can
do it without taking out the wooden
beams and putting in steel ones. That
means destroying the character of the
barn and he loves the barn.
So this year it will be back to the big
tent that served the group during its first
season last summer. The tent will go
up in early July and become the home
of the theatre group for the next eight
weeks as they present eight productions
from July 11 to Sept. 2.
But the people will be able to see the
barn while using the facilities mentioned
earlier, that go with the theatre. They'll
be able to walk where the hay used to be
in the mow. He even hopes somedry to
have lights illuminating the top of the
inside of the barn so that people can
begin to enjoy the barn and things that
maybe people here take for granted but
things that fascinate city people.
"Barns like this are vanishing and they
were rea:ly quite beautiful architecture."
But for Jim Murphy, its soon evident,
love of barns is secondary to love of
theatre. He's soon back talking about
the coming season and the plans he has.
Casting has already taken place during