Erie Times-News
June 6, 2012 2012
Mark Tanenbaum performed at 1505 State when In All Seriousness called the address home. Jeff Rodland did shows there with Directors Circle.
Friday and Saturday, they're reintroducing the second floor of 1505 State -- formerly known as Clayspace and most recently the home of Sojourners Expressions -- as a performing arts space with "Attack of the P.A.C.A." Expect one-act plays, monologues, live music, poetry and an art show.
P.A.C.A. stands for Pennsylvania Artists Collective Association, a nonprofit founded by Tanenbaum. He said 1505 will host a permanent theater, as well as smaller studios or rooms that teachers (art, dance, music, martial arts etc.) can rent for short terms.
"I've been on many (arts) boards, and I've seen many theaters go broke in a very short time," Tanenbaum said. "I recognize they are unsustainable based on ticket sales alone. What I needed to do was to create a more useful, prolific space that provided a variety of entrepreneurial performing artists with the opportunity to teach."
Tanenbaum hopes rental revenue, along with theater proceeds, will make 1505 a thriving and long-lasting cultural hot spot. Proceeds from this weekend will go toward renovations and improvements.
Tanenbaum's to-be-named theater debuts in the fall; it, too, will be available for others to rent. Rodland said he hopes to see more edgy fare which Roadhouse Theatre -- which started at 1505 -- and previous theater groups did. Some of this weekend's performers -- including Joe Thornton, who will reprise Eric Bogosian monologues from "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll" -- are veterans of past 1505 theatrical ventures. Works by William Inge, David Ives, David Mamet, Jeff Goode, Christopher Durang, Shel Silverstein and O. Henry are on tap.
Rodland is directing Durang's "'Dentity Crisis," which he had planned to do at the former Roadhouse; it was canceled in the wake of 9/11. With his wife, Kelly, he's also performing "The Lifeboat Is Sinking," a one-act from a Shel Silverstein piece they previously performed at 145 W. 11th St.
"Directors Circle and Roadhouse were the theaters I worked at in the past 15 years. Many of the people I worked with in Erie, the theater people, felt a tremendous void for our kind of theater," Rodland said.
"Even though we have a thriving community, there's still something that's missing for us, and this space seems to be a way of providing that for us, hopefully."
Tanenbaum said he signed a 10-year lease at 1505 State, so he's in it for the long haul. "I was born in Erie; I'm not going anywhere," he said. "This is a new idea, and it's one where the time is right and the town is ready, plus the building's been revitalized. (Basement Transmissions is on the first floor.) My little project is my contribution to the overall sustainability of downtown."