Setting the Stage for Fiction
The recent Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center article notes, “To accommodate the size of the [Fort Scott] collection—numbering more than 70 drops—the Auditorium’s stage depth was extended by 10 feet and proprietary rigging developed to hang and store the scenes.” It also explains that the Fort Scott scenery collection was acquired during the planning of the Ives theatre, posting “As plans shaped for the Auditorium’s design, the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center acquired a large collection of hand-painted Scottish Rite theatre drops that were made available from the sale of the Valley of Fort Scott Scottish Rite building in Kansas.” Both of these statements are incorrect. The plans for the theater and stage were finalized long before Fort Scott was even in the picture. The story needs to be told about how the stage almost ended up in the corner of a room without any space to stage Scottish Rite degrees.
The original 2014 design for the Ives auditorium placed the stage in the corner of a square room; it was not designed like a standard performance venue. This was an understandable oversight as the architectural firm specialized in elder care facilities and not theater spaces. The architects were initially brought on to evaluate and possibly repurpose an existing structure at the Minnesota Masonic Home for a heritage center. As plans changed and the need for new construction became evident, the original architectural firm was retainedeven though they had no previous experience with this type of venue.
I was contacted during July 2014 by Mark Campbell to possibly join the planning team as a theatre consultant for the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center project. I explained that the project needed theatre consultants that specialized in the new construction of performance spaces, recommending Michael DiBlasi of Schuler Shook. DiBlasi and I had attended two League of Historic American Theatres conferences earlier that year in Chicago and New York City. Schuler Shook and my company, Bella Scena, LLC, were Allied Service Providers for LHAT and we were both currently involved in two historical theater restoration projects: the SOKOL Hall in St. Paul and the Masonic Theatre in Winona, Minnesota. I scheduled a meeting with Campbell to introduce him to DiBlasi at the Minneapolis Scottish Rite. It was during this meeting that Campbell showed us the designs for the proposed auditorium and I voiced concern about the architects placing the stage in the corner of a room.
Schuler Shook was hired for the Minnesota Masonic Heritage Center planning and reconfigured the architect’s existing theater design. Soon after, I was also hired on August 1, 2014 as the project’s historical consultant. During this time, I attended all planning meetings with the architects, theatre consultants, interior designers, museum team, and others to provide source material and resources for a variety of projects. By October 2014, I realized that the small Ives stage would never accommodate degree work in the manner that either Minneapolis or St. Paul Scottish Rite Masons were accustomed to. I expressed concern about the limited number of lines that was currently proposed as it only included space for twelve drops.
It was at this point that I recommended replicating a rigging system that would mimic the line spacing in other Scottish Rite theaters across the country – one that did not use mechanized lines but remained a simple counterweight system. During the fall of 2014, I sought the counsel of both Rick Boychuk and Paul Sannerud to make sure that a safe system could be designed and I was not speaking out of turn. Obviously, it needed to be a system that would adhere to all current safety regulations.
Dan Culhane of SECOA was the designer for what the article refers to as “proprietary rigging.” His design was proposed by Schuler Shook for the Ives stage and accepted by the CEO. But the stage still wasn’t big enough to perform all of the Scottish Rite’s twenty-nine degrees. But how much bigger did the stage need to be as there was no collection to base the final size on?
The CEO directed me to come up with the necessary number of lines needed for a standard Scottish Rite scenery collection. I proposed that hanging seventy drops could stage all twenty-nine degrees and submitted the ideal compositions. The stage was extended ten feet. I then organized an anticipated, but unidentified, historical scenery collection so that the specifications could be provided to our theatre consultants and the rigging design finalized. This plan also took into consideration four empty lines that could accommodate scenery for rental groups – something that I was extremely hesitant to include for fear of damaging scenes on neighboring lines. Remember, there was still no inkling of what historical scenery collection would hang above the Ives stage. Fort Scott was not even on the radar.
My number of seventy lines was derived from looking at the combined collections of Minneapolis and St. Paul as the CEO explained that they would soon fold. But could we time their closing with the installation of the necessary scenery for the opening? After all, St. Paul was a perfect candidate as the collection was already restored, having completed the work myself in 2002. Steve Johnson was going to work on urging the Valley to relocate. I also took into account the possible inclusion of Scottish Rite scenes from Duluth and Winona. My focus was preserving Minnesota Masonic heritage as that was my initial directive and not a nationwide search for another acquisition.
It is important to recall that the CEO had explained that two Scottish Rite Valleys in Minneapolis and St. Paul would merge and meet in the new Heritage Center. However, he also suggested that the Scottish Rite in Duluth might fold due to poor management and the financial difficulties with the Speech Clinic. Therefore, I was creating a compilation of three collections that would be used for future degree work. I was also taking Winona into consideration, even though the City still owned the Masonic drops, as I had just put the collection into storage that summer. In 2014, I sincerely believed that many of the Masonic drops would never see the light of day on the Winona stage. In hindsight, I was correct, as the City of Winona recently announced their plan to auction off all but ten drops from their collection.
During the fall of 2014, the architects and theatre consultants also missed another crucial aspect of staging Scottish Rite degree work – the necessary floor space in front of the proscenium. During one meeting, I brought up this aspect and immediately an additional funding was approved for two rows of removable auditorium seats and a collapsible stage apron.
I have to wonder why no one remembers any of this institutional history, or do they?
To be continued…
