Renaissance Theatre Company. (Watermark Out News file photo)
ORLANDO | After city officials required the Renaissance Theatre Company to shutdown in mid-September, the fan favorite venue is just about ready to return home.
“It’s been a pretty tough couple of months, but I am really proud of the way that we’ve handled everything,” says Co-Founder Donald Rupe.
The main change to the Ren during the building’s closure is an upgraded fire alarm that now alerts guests to evacuate the building, Rupe describes, a $40,000 upgrade. This was a requirement to increase the building’s maximum occupancy to 499 people.
“The occupant load for the building is much higher than we’ve ever allowed in the building at one time,” Rupe said. “We’ll probably just stick to the audience size that we prefer, which is about 150 or 200 less than what the occupant load for the building actually is.”
The Ren, which prides itself on its elaborate sets, was also set back by some paperwork needed to sustain set construction. Rupe says that they will need permits through the city for constructing sets moving forward.
“A lot of people saw that big ‘Condemned’ sticker and thought that meant there was some permanent problem or that the building itself had issues, and that was just not the case,” Rupe explains. “As we said in the beginning, the city had some things that they wanted us to look at and unfortunately, it took several months to get to the solutions.”
During its time away from home base, the Ren has pivoted and staged shows in other local venues. They have included The Plaza Live, The Beacham and an unoccupied theater space at 54 W. Church St. in downtown, the former home of Fringe ArtSpace.
Rupe, upon realizing that reopening the Ren was taking longer than he had hoped, says that he had approached the city about the unoccupied space in downtown. The Ren was then given a short-term lease through March that would allow them to use the facility to continue running shows.
“We adopted a slogan at the beginning of this, which is that ‘The Ren is more than just a place, it’s you,’ and people have shown that to be true,” Rupe says. “I don’t think anybody’s been waiting for us to reopen; they’ve just been joining us on this journey to all of these different locations.”
The Ren is currently running its production of “Mean Girls” at its temporary occupancy of 54 W. Church St. According to Rupe, they plan to continue the production at that location for the remainder of its run through March 15, even if the Ren’s original building is permitted to reopen between that time.
Awaiting inspections, Rupe is hopeful that the team will be back in the building in the next couple of weeks.
“The very day that we get back in the building, we’re going to make some announcements about what shows are next so that people can get excited and buy tickets,” he says.
For updates, visit RenTheatre.com.
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