Farewell to Gilbert Street
Riverside Theatre is losing its iconic space, after thirty years.
I knew it was coming. I’d known for weeks. That’s the kind of perk you get when you’re sleeping with the technical director; you get a heads up that your theatre is likely losing its space.
I knew, and I took it in stride. Good timing, really, I thought. If you’re going to close your doors, better to do it during the plague when we can’t gather anyway. What an excellent time to stop having to pay rent.
So I was surprised as much as anything when I read the official announcement and burst into tears.
Riverside Theatre has been my artistic home for over a decade. I have premiered my last five plays there. Founded over 30 years ago by Jody Hovland and Ron Clark, two dear friends, along with their friend Bruce Wheaton, it has been a solid and comforting fixture in Iowa City’s landscape, and my own. I quite literally grew up at 213 N. Gilbert Street. During a time when most playwrights are treated like temporary independent contractors, Riverside treated me like an artist. They invested in me, not just my plays. I am the theatre artist I am today because of the way that organization held me and trusted me.
Of course, Riverside Theatre isn’t closing. They’re just losing their space. A theatre is comprised of people, not walls. And if we’re being honest with ourselves, the space was kind of a dump. But its dumpiness was part of what made it so comfortable, like a broken-in shoe or a fat, warm lap. My favorite little detail was this piece of carpet in the house where someone a million years ago had singed with a hot iron; the outline of the iron still remained, like an ill-advised tattoo. The dressing room had a shelf of Aqua-Net and spirit gum that was probably older than the theatre itself. When my partner first took over the shop, the first thing he did was change the lightbulbs. They had dimmed long ago, and nobody thought to change them — everyone was moving too fast, putting out too many fires, to notice. That’s the nature of shoestring theatre.
This is a season of disillusionment. So many things we thought were permanent — democracy, for example — have revealed themselves to be all too fragile. I loved knowing that Gilbert Street was there. I loved using that little backstage toilet where the only privacy came from a plastic accordion door and the other actors’ good graces to pretend you weren’t in there. I loved warming up in the house; I loved lunching with my love in the shop; I loved sneaking Diet Cokes out of the concessions fridge (all the secrets are coming out now!). It was my little box of paints. I know many people who felt that way, like the space belonged to them.
When I was in college, I got to hear a scene designer give a talk. I wish I could remember the designer’s name, because he said something that has never left me. He said space equals destiny: that how a space is designed will determine what kinds of things go on there. People act differently at a football stadium versus an elevator. So as theatre artists, we must carefully consider our spaces, for they will determine the destiny of our art. While Gilbert Street stood, I felt Riverside Theatre was destined to return there. Now that it’s gone, the theatre’s destiny becomes harder to see. It exists — perhaps it always existed — not as a place, but as a network. What is the shape of the internet? What are the contours of a family tree? How do we render the intangible?
Riverside’s current artistic director, Adam Knight, is a blessing disguised as a human being. Smart, generous, sensitive, shrewd, a community builder, he is a world class leader and a gift to our community. I have every confidence in his vision. I know this wasn’t an easy decision. I know this is the ending of a chapter, not the whole book. I know we will build something better.
But we can build the future and honor the past at the same time. Thank you, Gilbert Street. All theatres have ghosts, and yours will haunt me forever.
To donate to Riverside Theatre and support the future of professional theatre in Iowa City, go to https://www.riversidetheatre.org/donate.
