Toward the climax of “Murder on the Orient Express,” Your Theatre’s debut production at the newly opened Steeple Playhouse, the multiple suspects step toward the audience as the stage goes dark on everything except a spotlight that shines on their soliloquies.
One after another, the passengers on the first-class sleeping coach from Istanbul to Paris recount the secrets of their pasts, and their motivations for murder. The audience is theirs alone as they stand in the light of their confessions, the pitch black of an enlarged new Playhouse performance space at the former First Baptist Church all around them.
In Your Theatre’s more modest home at St. Martin Episcopal Church’s hall in the South End these last 21 years, it would have been a challenge to light this sprawling production in such an impressive manner as director Lawrence Houbre Jr. arranged during “Murder’s” two-week run in the newly opened theater last month.
Not so anymore.
Your Theatre’s new playhouse at the former First Baptist in downtown New Bedford is everything its old rented digs at St. Martin’s could never have been.
It’s a big, hearty, almost brawny performance space. It has opened up entertainment possibilities that had previously been closed to the Your Theatre company.
Both lighting and sound systems are now controlled from an elevated space in the church balcony, not a cramped tiny space at the side of the theater as was the case before.
“Murder on the Orient,” with its multiple characters and complicated sets, was staged to both bring in the everyday theatergoer and to demonstrate the new larger space’s reach. By the time Hercule Poirot had solved the mystery that everyone had done it, those in the sold-out, opening weekend audience knew that Your Theatre had also done it.
Done what?
Built a terrific new performing art space in the heart of downtown New Bedford out of what had indisputably been the most endangered historic structure in downtown New Bedford.
“We really wanted to blow the doors off the place, so to speak, in the first season,” said the company’s unofficial spokesman, Eric Paradis.
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Paradis, long an actor, director and board member at Your Theatre, explained that they hoped to get the community excited about what the new playhouse can do in this rehabilitated historic church, which doesn’t just open up a downtown spot for community theater, but for performance art and events of all sorts in center city New Bedford.
Eight to 10 other nonprofits looking for suitable venues have already contacted Your Theatre about the possibilities of subcontracting the space.
Last weekend, the Steeple Playhouse moved the fully convertible new stage used for “Murder” toward the back of the sanctuary, creating an even larger audience capacity in the building for Jazz Fest. And on Dec. 15, the traveling one-man show “A Christmas Carol” will take place in the bigger space.
It only gets more ambitious from here.
In the new year, Your Theatre will turn to more serious fare, with plans to stage Part Two of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” and “Crimes of the Heart,” before wrapping up the Steeple’s debut season with comedy again with ”The Play that Goes Wrong.”
The plan is that the Steeple Playhouse at the First Baptist Church will be both a performance and an event space, helping fund its own existence with everything from weddings to concerts.
With the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center closed for more than a year for renovations, it’s just in time for the downtown, which out of the blue this fall also lost the UMass Dartmouth College of Visual & Performing Arts campus and its associated galleries.
By the way, the audience size for the new space currently has a top capacity of 261 vs. just 99 at the St. Martin’s space. They hope to increase that top seating to around 285, and they can configure the audience size both up and down with the new portable stage, including a configuration for theater-in-the-round.
Much of the seating consists of the historic pews of the First Baptist, which were a condition of the structure receiving historic tax credits for its rehabilitation. In the future, the hope is to one day add seats in the church balcony for mezzanine seating.
It’s been a long haul getting here.
Your Theatre has been around in New Bedford for 75 years, but it has never owned its own performance center. So it was constantly subject to the competing priorities, and even the evictions of its previous landlords.
St. Martin’s became its home after the city of New Bedford suddenly ordered the company out of their Purchase Street home after 27 years. That was just after the start of this century. That city building, once the New Bedford Institute of Technology, is now called the Quest Center and is used for nonprofit agencies and as a business incubator space.
A word here about one of the gentlest souls who has ever blessed the New Bedford performing arts scene, Edward Maguire.
Maguire, an actor, director, and all-around producer, was the guiding force of Your Theatre for 50 years or so. And like Moses, he always pointed them toward the Promised Land of owning their own space.
Ed did not live to see the Steeple Playhouse open, but he led the nonprofit troupe through an era during which they put aside enough of a kitty to be able to purchase the First Baptist, by way of the city of New Bedford and Waterfront Historic Area LeaguE (WHALE).
It was a confluence of luck that just as Your Theatre was kicking up its search for its own home a decade or so ago, the city had realized once and for all that the greatly dwindled First Baptist congregation would need a partner if its historic building was ever to survive. One stormy winter’s day, parts of its steeple even blew off the church and onto the William Street sidewalk.
The structure went from having the threat of a city takeover to WHALE becoming involved in purchasing the building on behalf of the theater group.
“It really was an interesting model to have Your Theatre and allow the company to use a portion of the building,” recalled Erin Miranda, the new executive director of WHALE, and at the time, an official with the statewide nonprofit organization, Preservation Massachusetts.
“Even then, we knew this was a really good model for others to follow,” she remembered.
New Bedford historians Peggi Medeiros and the late Pam Cole did the research that led to Preservation Massachusetts declaring the structure one of the 10 most endangered historic buildings in the state. That opened the door for WHALE to apply for, and win, historic credits that helped the city’s preeminent preservation organization come up with a plan to save the structure. The plan then made it possible to credibly raise grant money from the community, as well as win significant bequests from city taxpayers through New Bedford’s Community Preservation grants.
It’s been a 10-year long process, and it was almost crippled by the pandemic.
Miranda, a local woman who is the dynamic new director of WHALE, noted that there are always unexpected expenses in the rehabilitation of any historic building, and especially one as large as the First Baptist Church. But both Miranda and Paradis said the exponentially increasing construction costs caused by the COVID shutdowns were a major challenge.
To this day, the First Baptist rehabilitation is not finished. Things remaining to be done include the restoration and renovation of the balcony space, the completion of a 108-seat black box theater (small, experimental-type theater) in the basement, a renovated kitchenette and other amenities.
And then the building will have to be maintained after that.
The re-outfitting of First Baptist that has taken place includes a complete renovation of the exterior (including temporary removal and rebuilding of the steeple), new handicapped-accessible entrances, walkways and bathrooms, rebuilt historic gutters, entrance ways and some windows. It’s estimated to have been a $2.5 to $3 million project to date, funded by a combination of city, state, federal and private grants and donations.
Paradis says that when WHALE finishes the bookkeeping on the historic tax credits and finally conveys the building to Your Theatre, that will be just the start.
Your Theatre’s job will then be to make sure the building doesn’t fall into disrepair again.
“That’s an enormous job,” he said, admitting to a bit of trepidation on behalf of the troupe. “We are excited and nervous about the challenge, there’s no doubt about it.”
Your Theatre is almost a completely volunteer organization, outside of someone who manages their accounting and a new executive director who will professionalize the operation of the Playhouse, which will be a fully-owned subsidiary of Your Theatre.
They’re expecting great things.
Moving from a modest space like St. Martin’s to a much larger venue like First Baptist was always going to be a big scale-up.
So over the past five years, Your Theatre has grown its support cast. In particular, adding the exponentially larger number of ushers needed to monitor the bigger space with the increased entrances and exits.
“We’ve got a volunteer base now that we’ve slowly developed people that are doing incredible work,” Paradis said. “Our marketing team is doing amazing stuff, we’ve got a development team that’s doing small to medium-sized grants, all on a volunteer basis. Now, we’re rebuilding our ushering and house management teams.”
On Steeple’s opening weekend, longtime Your Theatre President Sue Richard greeted the crowd at the front of the stage, as did its volunteers on the walkway to the new building.
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Richard took a moment to ask the volunteers from WHALE to stand up and take a bow. They did, and I’ll raise some personal applause for Teri Bernert, the recently former executive director of WHALE, who along with her board, shepherded this project through all its ups and downs until it was finally ready for its next life two weekends ago.
Miranda praised the city for having “embraced” its many opportunities for historic preservation, which many believe are directly tied to its prospects for economic revitalization.
Also key to the First Baptist project, Paradis said, was Kathryn Duff of Studio2Sustain, who was the architect for the renovation.
Paradis offered WHALE the unqualified praise it deserves.
“Honestly, this doesn’t happen without WHALE.” he said. “It just doesn’t happen.”
The mark of a successful community in many respects is the quality of its nonprofit and arts communities.
With groups like WHALE and Your Theatre, New Bedford has been doubly blessed. They are about to lead us into the next era.
Email columnist Jack Spillane at jspillane@newbedfordlight.org.
Thank you for the history of the project.
We drive from Woods Hole to YT ‘s excellent productions.
Murder was terrific! Thanks to all.
Beautiful Job! It should be noted however that the pews are not original. These pews are Eastlake style dating probably from a mid 1860s or early 1870s renovation. In the 1820s there would have been meetinghouse style box pews such as are seen in the Unitarian Church on Union street. Box pews had a practical purpose in that they afforded the congregants a confined space free of floor drafts which could be warmed in cold weather with portable coal heaters which were commonly used in churches of this era.
Thanks for the history! Yes, the First Baptist pews were not original to the 1829-built building. My understanding is that there have also been other changes to the structure since the original construction. The pews, however, were historic from some point in the church’s history. And their preservation for at least five years was necessary to win some of the historic tax credits that were needed to rehabilitate the building, according to Your Theatre officials.
I enjoyed reading Jack Spillane’s article on the transformation of New Bedford’s iconic First Baptist Church into the impressive Your Theater’s Steeple Theater in downtown New Bedford.
We are fortunate to have such committed individuals and organizations whose efforts continue to improve our community.
I can’t wait to see this venue in person.
I read through twice looking for the physical address. Admittedly I may still have missed it. And, I will be able to search online for it. But, thought you may want to edit the piece with that included.
The Steeple Playhouse at the First Baptist Church is located at 149 William Street, just a few doors down from Gallery X, which is at the former First Universalist Church.