A Little Musing on History

A Tuning the Air Journal

Wednesday September 9, 2009 – A Little Musing on History

I put one of Christina’s photos from the lighting tech work the other night up as the desktop on my computer, and it got me thinking about how we got here. It had that “what a long strange trip” feel to it. But in a more serious way I found myself musing on how unlikely all of this is, and yet here we are.

In the summer of 2007 we had just closed our third season around the Fourth of July. It was pretty clear to me and Jaxie, and everyone else for that matter, that we had about outgrown our space at Trinity Church. In some ways it was the best home we ever had, but it was not really a performance space, it was in a bad location, it was too small and we could not grow any further if we stayed in the same space. We had abandoned doing shows in the summertime, because it was brutal for the players and borderline-abusive to our audiences. It was time to move.

We looked at a lot of property for rent, some of it very interesting, but none of it right for us for a variety of reasons. While sitting at my “mobile office” one day doing some work, I got an email from a guy who was working at a newly opened “arts center” in Fremont, wondering if Tuning the Air might like to do a performance in their space. I know the building from the outside, but had not quite realized that it was now an arts center and no longer a church. I responded that we were not really a group that could go from location to location, but needed to occupy a performance space; thanked him, and vaguely talked about my coming by to at least have a look at the facility. Never got around to it.

In the end, we did another 5-week run at Trinity in the Fall, leading up to a 10-week run at the Capital Hill Arts Center. A most educational experience, which opened up our eyes and our thinking in any number of ways. But we were not going to do a long stand there. Too expensive, for one thing. Kind of funky. A working theatre that required a lot of work on the lights every week, not to mention the theatre staff who were forced to strike the set of whatever had a run there so that we could do our show, and then reset the set afterward. Kind of crazy.

So we were back to looking for a new home. We considered several possibilities and came close to committing to a space up on Greenwood that had a lot going for it, but would (in retrospect) probably have been a disaster. With the Christmas/New Year’s holiday behind us, and no definitive plan for the next season, I began to seriously reevaluate our needs. We had found a way to do the show in a space that was not ours, so perhaps this was a paradigm worth including. Going back to CHAC never really entered my mind, but I suddenly remembered the email from the guy at the arts center in Fremont, and dug through my inbox to find it. On a lark I just turned up at the facility, introduced myself and took a tour. This was the Fremont Abbey Arts Center.

It was under heavy construction, including a seismic retrofit. But as soon as I walked into the Great Hall I was struck with the sense that this was the place for us.

Called an impromptu board meeting, which took place after rehearsal the following Saturday, at Besalu Coffee in Ballard. I remember Travis and Jaxie being there for sure. Taylor as well I’m pretty sure. A quorum anyway. I moved that we approach the Abbey with a proposal for a season of performances, plus rehearsals and possibly classes. A number of us visited the space over subsequent weeks. The feeling was not universally or immediately positive. Or maybe just hesitant. But somehow as the days passed it kept coming back. Finally, after the Greenwood deal fell through, we decided to go for it.

For a number of good reasons, we decided to do the show downstairs in the café space. Not an easy space for us, but it was what we felt we could handle. We figured out how to do lighting that could be installed and struck relatively easily. We came up with risers and a staging scheme. Working in a shared space was/is certainly a challenge, but in April 2008 we opened there for a delayed and shorter-than-usual Spring season. Hard, hard work, but we pulled it off. For the Autumn of 2008 we remained downstairs, but moved to Thursday. Better on many levels. For Winter/Spring 2009 we flirted with moving upstairs, but ultimately continued downstairs for one more season. For myself, I think I just needed to sit still a little longer and pay attention to the music instead of constantly attending to practicalities and logistics.

Now that we are moving upstairs, 18 months after our first show there, I have a hard time figuring out why we waited so long. I suppose that is the way it always is.