Theater is a welcome gathering place for locals and visitors alike
You know you are a part of an intimate theater experience when there’s the possibility of having a sardine land in your lap.
During the Lake Dillon Theatre Company’s production of “Noises Off,” I found myself so close to the action that I was flinching through much of the farce’s raucous second act.
My flinching is a sign of success for the theatre company, which wanted to move their close relationship with the audience from the cramped Old Dillon Town Hall into their new digs at the spacious Silverthorne Performing Arts Center, which opened in June.
Interaction with the audience — of 70 max — was a given at the 2,500 squarefoot Town Hall, which was built in 1899. In fact, the facility is so small that there is no backstage to speak of. When actors needed to exit the stage during a production, they would find themselves outside in the parking lot.
“To re-enter from the other side of the stage, actors would have to run around the back of the building,” explained Joshua Blanchard, executive director of the theatre company, which is in its 24th season. “Keep in mind this is happening in a place where outside is cold and snowy much of the year.”
The new facility, which opened in late June, brings actors in out of the cold and provides them with a state-of-the art setting to perfect their craft. The result of a $9 million public-private partnership between the Town of Silverthorne and the theatre company, the polished, contemporary 16,000-foot facility contains three stages, dressing rooms, a workshop, a modernized orchestral pit, a lobby with a bar, office space and hallways that allow performers to exit the stage without exiting the building.
Even though I saw “Noises Off” in the Main Stage theater, which seats up to 148, it felt like a private showing in a friend’s living room. Thanks to extensive soundproofing, the 30-by-30-foot studio theater is quiet enough to hear whispered dialogue even though its west wall is a mere 15 feet from U.S. 6. The glasspaned garage door on the east side of the 25-by-25-foot Lab theater opens onto a large lawn with the Blue River rushing in the background. All three are black box theaters, allowing for staging flexibility. An outdoor stage hosted bands (and the resulting dancing) this summer.
The center is already acting as a gathering place for the community. Founded 50 years ago as a mining town, Silverthorne served as home base for workers building the dam of Lake Dillon in the early ‘60s. Since then it has become a shopper’s mecca of outlet stores and a convenient stop for ski traffic going to and coming from the mountains. (When I told my daughters that we were going to Silverthorne for the Labor Day weekend, they wondered what we were going to do for three days at the Wendy’s.)
The town of roughly 4,500 has a scattering of places to convene as a community. In terms of watering holes there’s The Mint, which opened in 1862 as a saloon to service thirsty miners. In a town known for recreational opportunities, Silverthorne residents may meet up at Lake Dillon or one of the town’s parks or hiking trails. The bike trail itself serves as a Main Street where residents meet and catch up on local happenings. Even the town hall is accessible from the trail, which winds along the Blue River.
The Performing Arts Center, Recreation Center and Silverthorne Pavilion give Silverthorne a triangular center some might call its heart.
Within this triangle we enjoyed dinner at Sauce on the Blue before the show and afterwards picked up a bottle of wine at Locals Liquors. After a ride up to Lake Dillon the next day, the family rode back into the triangle to have locally-made Higgles Ice Cream and watch a wedding reception spilling out of the nearby Pavilion. Once sticky fingers were licked clean, I wanted to show my daughters the public art on display at the performing arts center.
“Many people think of the center as a culmination of effort, “Blanchard said. “But I think of it as just the beginning of what we can do.”
One gets the impression that he’s speaking not only of the theatre company, but the town itself.