UH, LCC theaters closed for renovations this year

“The show must go on” might be a 19th-century circus adage, but it has become part of the current curriculum at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Leeward Community College as theaters on both campuses will close for renovations during the 2016-2017 theater season.

Kennedy Theatre, the 627-seat flagship facility of the entire UH system since it opened in 1963, will be shut down for an estimated seven months. The work has yet to start. The Leeward Community College Theatre, which has been in continuous use since it opened in 1974, will be closed for almost a year.

With the main stage theaters and their satellite lab theater spaces gone for the school year, professors and students are searching for spaces that fit the shows they’re working on. The closings are forcing theater classes to find places to rehearse and stage their shows. They’re creating outdoor venues and taking their act on the road.

A UH-Manoa production of “Antigone” will be staged outside Kennedy Theatre, with the audience sitting on the lawn. Another show will be presented on the theater’s lanai, and a third production could find a home at the Campus Center Ballroom. Others might open at nearby Mid-Pacific Institute or in the university dance studio.

The Leeward administration is helping theater manager Kemuel DeMoville cope with the loss of his venue by providing an orchestra room as an alternative performance space.

“Once they’ve finished doing some electrical upgrades to the room, it’ll be a fantastic, intimate performance space,” he said.

DeMoville is also partnering with Hawaii Plantation Village in Waipahu to present a site-specific children’s theater show with weekday performances for schools and public performances on weekends. Another production will be staged in Waianae.

“I think this refurbishment and repair time has given us a fantastic opportunity to take our programming out into the community,” DeMoville said. “This is a time for us to really break our programming out of the four walls.”

With the exception of asbestos abatement, some roof repairs and “other minor facility modifications,” there had been no major renovations to Leeward’s 640-seat building since it opened. The funding — $8 million from the Legislature and another $2 million from the university system — had been committed by the time DeMoville was hired in 2013.

He has been involved in the renovation planning ever since, overseeing preparations for a building that houses an 85-seat lab theater and two dance studios that are used for theater, dance, yoga and hula classes. Vocal and instrumental music classes also use the facility.

Leeward personnel spent much of the last school year moving things out of the theater while still staging events, DeMoville said.

“We have to empty the entire building — curtains, lights, costumes, props, offices — everything,” DeMoville said. “We have 42 years’ worth of stuff to pack up and store, so it’s been a yearlong process — all while continuing to produce plays, concerts and other events.”

The schedule includes the plays and musical performances presented by Leeward’s theater program, productions sponsored by other departments, and groups that rent space, such as Hawaii Ballet and Honolulu Broadway Babies. Total event attendance for the 2015-2016 theater season was 19,207.

DeMoville’s Manoa counterpart, Kennedy Theatre manager Jessica Jacob, said the “payoff of addressing so many needed safety and compliance issues is worth the pinch in the long run. After nearly 5-1/2 decades of wear, tear, changing building codes and professional standards, it is finally time to get a little work done.”

For instance, the Lab Theatre catwalk has been off-limits since 2011 because it does not have handrails, which were not required when it was built. Other needed upgrades include a dye vat for the costume shop and a spray booth for the scene shop.

Bids for the Kennedy makeover range from $4.15 million to $6 million. The expenditure will benefit a significant number of Manoa students and many more in the community.

The Kennedy Theatre building currently serves more than 1,670 students who are taking theater or dance classes. A total of 12,391 people attended the 17 productions that were presented during the 2015-2016 theater season. Many campus affiliates use the theater for events ranging from concerts and fashion shows to graduation ceremonies and cultural events.

DeMoville expects the Leeward Theatre to reopen by the fall of 2017. It isn’t that simple for Jacob. Work on Kennedy Theatre was supposed to start in July and take seven months to complete. She was notified at the end of April that the start date would be delayed for “up to three months.”

At the end of July she was still waiting for the start date to be announced.