ACT III REMODELING PROJECT -  CONSTRUCTION UPDATES

Check back here often for updates on our construction progress.
11/1/2019: Our new seats are installed and ready for an audience!
10/30/2019: Our new seats have finally arrived! Installation is taking place over the next couple of days, so they will be all ready for you to sit in during our December production of Oliver! Hooray!
10/17/2019: Thanks to the City of Cottage Grove for the use of temporary chair set #2 for our final two weekends of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)[Revised]. (And we're excited to announce that our real new chairs are scheduled to be delivered on October 29!)
10/11/2019: Opening weekend loaner chairs courtesy of the Riverside Church of God in Cottage Grove.
9/20/2019: Part of this summer's Scene 1 work involves putting in fire sprinkler piping in all backstage areas. (During Scene 2, we'll be completing fire sprinkler system installation throughout the entire building, but it doesn't make sense to sprinkler the auditorium and lobby until after we've finished the remodeling work. We wanted to do backstage since it was a huge amount of work to empty those areas of all costumes and props, and we don't want to have to do that again!)
8/2/2019: No more seats! All of the blue seats have been removed from the house as we get ready for the installation of our new seats.

Volunteers have also been working backstage, repainting Actors' Hallway and getting ready to give our Dressing Rooms a fresh coat of paint as well. 
7/18/2019: This week's project was to rebuild the stage floor. Now the surface is all smooth again (important so our wonderful actors don't trip!)
7/3/2019: So long, farewell . . . bye, bye blue seats! Thanks to some of our incredible volunteers, our blue seats are exiting stage left. These seats have been sat in for twenty years of performances at CT -- and even more years before that at a Portland church (from who we acquired these used seats back in 1998). New seats will be installed later this summer.
6/19/2019: After careful deliberation, the Cottage Theatre Board has decided to implement ACT III in phases, with "Scene 1" work to begin this summer and "Scene 2" work to happen by 2021.

​Like with any major remodeling project, we’ve had to make some tough decisions. The project we originally envisioned was to be completed in its entirety this summer. Unfortunately, when the final bids came back in April we were shocked to receive an increase of more than 65% in total project costs (from $1.5MM to $2.5MM) despite no change in scope. Our board of directors and other community leaders looked at a myriad of methods for financing this increased cost. In the end, none of the offered loans met our long-term financial viability requirements. We did not want to end up with debt that would have undermined the project’s original impetus, which was to strengthen future revenues by increasing seating capacity.

Because this ACT III project is critical to our patrons’ comfort and enjoyment as well as the theatre’s long-term success, stopping the project is not an option. We are instead re-imagining ACT III on a longer timeline. Rather than a single act, single scene production, we will implement ACT III over several years. Scene 1 will occur this summer, with further work to follow after we raise the additional funds needed. This summer our scene “script” includes:

• Replacing the existing seats
• Installing fire sprinkler lines in portions of the building
• Repainting some backstage areas
• And more!
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5/8/2019: We have all our building permits in hand and will get construction underway as soon as we put the necessary financing puzzle together. (This got more complicated than expected when the price on this project zoomed from $1.5 million in spring 2018 to $2.5 million in spring 2019.) We'll keep you posted on our progress!