Italy: Show will go on at Venice Theatre

Venice: There are signs that the show will go on at the Venice Theatre. It’s more than just a show biz mantra as the troupe works to repair damage from Ian.

“There’s no reason to stand around and look at it, we’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Murray Chase, Producing Executive Director of the Venice Theatre.

That work is being done to repair and rebuild the Venice Theatre following the devastating blow from Ian. Disaster recovery teams and other crews have been on site the last two weeks.

“Some days they have 30 or 40 members removing materials, removing moisture from the drywall and from the flooring,” said Chase. “Then we have our contractor who was already working with us another project, and is now working with their subcontractors to remove the unsafe debris.”

“Kind of like a heartbreak, I’ve done a couple of shows here,” said Bruno Mollica, a Venice resident. “You can’t bring back memories of a building like this, it’s tragic.”

The Venice Theatre is such an important part of the community and people’s lives.

“It means a chance to get out and see some type of entertainment that’s highly acclaimed,” said Kathleen and Tom Borek. “We enjoy the once a month on our calendar, it’s the highlight of our calendar.”

Venice Theatre will have a production of Kinky Boots in November, either at the small theatre in another one of their buildings or at a theatre nearby. The theatre’s production of A Christmas Carol will happen in another building beginning the first week of December. That building currently has many of the costumes that were removed from the main building.

“We’ll start performance there either in November or certainly by December 2nd,” said Chase. “We’re hoping within three months to have the Pinkerton Theatre up and running.

That’s the small theatre that’s part of the main building. There’s hope the main theatre could reopen within a year.

“It is getting done step by step by step, there are a whole lot of steps yet,” said Chase.