Entrance: Stage right
After a frustrating hiatus, Bunbury Theatre finds a home that fits
By Judith Egerton
jegerton@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

The former YWCA gym in the Henry Clay Building will become Bunbury Theatre's new auditorium. Workers were tearing out the old floor. (Photos by Michael Hayman, The Courier-Journal)

At age 21, Bunbury Theatre has come of age: The Louisville theater company finally has a permanent home of its own.

After a lengthy hiatus, during which the theater searched for a new performance space, Bunbury will begin producing plays this spring in a former gymnasium on the third floor of the Henry Clay Building at Third and Chestnut streets, which is undergoing extensive renovation.

The small gym in the former YWCA building will be redesigned into an intimate performance space with a thrust-style stage, about 150 seats and exterior lobby space. Bunbury also will have the use of a large backstage area for dressing rooms and restrooms, as well as storage space for scenery and costumes.

A circular track above the gym will stay, according to Louisville theater designer Stephen Woodring. It will be used for technical equipment, such as lighting, and by performers during some shows.

Juergen Tossmann, left, Bunbury's artistic director, and theater designer Stephen Woodring discussed the construction of the theater's new home in the former gym. It will have 150 seats.

In addition, Bunbury will have a box office on Third Street that will give the theater more visibility and make ticket purchases easier for customers.

Bunbury, which has operated on an annual budget of about $160,000, expects to spend between $250,000 and $500,000 on its new home.

Susan McNeese Lynch, president of Bunbury's board of directors, said that about $450,000 has been pledged by supporters for the new theater. The theater's capital campaign is continuing, she said, and welcomes donations.

Lynch sees a brighter, busier future for Bunbury in its new home. "We anticipate the space will be much more active," she said. "We will do more performances of the shows we produce -- and we can make it available to other groups who may want to use it when we are dark."

Bunbury also is considering expanding its programming to include workshops and lunchtime shows. The theater's previous space, at Seventh and Main streets, was very limiting, said Lynch, who is excited about the flexibility of the new location. "The goal is to grow Bunbury and make it bigger and better -- and this is a space where we can do that," she said.

Juergen Tossmann, Bunbury's producing/artistic director, is eager to get back to directing plays. "It's taken a while to get here, but it feels right. This feels like Bunbury," he said during a recent look at the old gym as it was being renovated. "I'm ready to start producing," he said.

Theater designer Stephen Woodring, left, and Bunbury Theatre artistic director Juergen Tossmann went over changes at the former gym that will be the theater's new home.

Bunbury had announced it would relocate to the Mellwood Arts Center, but plans for a new theater there did not work out.

The last full season for Bunbury was 2002-03, Lynch said. The most recent performance by the company was a year ago, when actors and staff came together for one of their signature shows -- William Gibson's offbeat holiday comedy/drama, "The Butterfingers Angel, Mary and Joseph, Herod the Nut and the Slaughter of Twelve Hit Carols in a Pear Tree." Tossmann directed the show at the Kentucky Center.

"This has been a long haul to get Bunbury safely tucked back into a new home," said theater designer Woodring, who noted that the theater company requires an intimate space. "If you remember their old place, it was like watching a play in your living room."

The small gymnasium in the Henry Clay building "is just eccentric enough to make it good for Bunbury," added Woodring, who also designed Bunbury's theater on Seventh Street.

The eight-story Henry Clay building is owned by City Properties, which is spending $18 million to convert the previous 1920s athletic club and former YWCA into a multi-use building. Plans include retail space on the ground floor. Restored ballrooms and reception halls above will be available for weddings and other events. The top floors are being converted into 33 apartments and 11 condominiums.

Architect Bill Weyland, managing partner of the Henry Clay project, said several events already have been held at the building, including a concert by bluegrass-country musician and fiddler Alison Krauss in the restored ballroom and Breeders' Cup-related receptions.

Bunbury's move to the Henry Clay means the theater group will remain an important element of the downtown theater district, Weyland said.

The theater company left 112 S. Seventh St. after the landlords, Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, decided to incorporate the building into a major redevelopment project, which is now the 21C Museum Hotel, an internationally known boutique hotel and contemporary art museum.

If the renovations at Third and Chestnut proceed as planned, Bunbury will raise the curtain on a new theater with 50 additional seats in April with a production of "Beyond Therapy" by Christopher Durang.

The popular comedy has a star-studded past. The 1981 off-Broadway version featured Sigourney Weaver. A year later, the Broadway production was directed by John Madden, who would later direct the Oscar-winning film "Shakespeare in Love." That version starred John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest and David Hyde Pierce in his first Equity role.

Bunbury also plans to produce a play in June and then resume a full season of shows next fall.

Reporter Judith Egerton can be reached at (502) 582-4503.