Footlite Musicals Named Recipient of Lighting Grant

Footlite Musicals received a large grant in late October to improve the stage lighting in its home theater, the Hedback Community Theater at 1847 North Alabama Street, Indianapolis.

The $165,500 grant from the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation will be used to finance the installation of a light batten to illuminate the front of the stage. The grant will also finance the replacement of two existing battens on the ceiling over the front of the auditorium with powered theatrical hoists that can be lowered for setting lighting fixtures and placing gels on them, as well as to perform maintenance as required.

Aerial Arts will install the power battens. This well-respected local business which has completed most of the installations in the major theaters in Indianapolis also installed a new rigging system on Footlite’s stage in the spring of 2010. In addition, Aerial Arts will train those individuals who will be operating the equipment at the end of the installation.

The new, safer environment in which to work will help attract high quality lighting designers and crews, according to Footlite representatives. Following this first step, additional lighting fixtures and a new light board will be installed as funds become available.

Now in the midst of its 56th theatrical season, Footlite Musicals is Indianapolis’s oldest continuously operating community theatre. Footlite assumed this position when the Booth Tarkington Civic Theater moved from Indianapolis to Carmel this past fall.

Help Us Fill the New Lighting Battens

No contribution is too small to help us fill the new lighting battens with lights. If eight people each contribute $1,000, or 16 people each donate $500, or 32 people each contribute $250, or 320 people each contribute $25, we will have $8,000 to pay for lighting instruments already acquired through an unexpected source.

Make checks payable to Footlite Musicals’ Building Fund and designate “lights” on the memo line. Mail checks to 1847 North Alabama Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202, or make a donation online on our revamped support pages.

Footlite Receives 29 Encore Award Nominations

The Encore Association was established in 1970 with a mission of promoting excellence in all aspects of production in Central Indiana community theatre. The board of directors hosts an annual awards ceremony in the fall recognizing excellence from the previous theatrical season. These awards are decided by a committee of judges who apply, are accepted by the board, view productions, and select nominees. The judges then announce the winners at the annual awards ceremony. Footlite congratulates this year’s nominees!

The Producers

Best Production – Lori Raffel
Best Director – Rich Baker
Best Actor – Jason Gloye
Best Major Supporting Actor – Trevor Fanning
Best Major Supporting Actor – Bryan Padgett
Best Minor Supporting Actor – Doug Messinger
Best Vocal Director – John Phillips
Best Costumes – Jeff Farley
Best Set Design – Rich Baker, Jeff Farley, Mike Sandusky
Best Set Decoration – Jeff Farley

Annie

Best Actor – Daniel Draves
Best Actress – Jeanne Chandler
Best Male Singer – Daniel Draves
Best Set Decoration – Jeff Farley

The Fantasticks

Best Director – Camilla Upchurch
Best Actor – Scott Martin
Best Minor Supporting Actor – Bob Harbin
Best Minor Supporting Actress – Brenda Upchurch
Best Male Singer – Joe Mount
Best Performer 18 & Under – Emma Weber

The Pajama Game

Best Actor – Paul Nicely
Best Major Supporting Actress – Susie Harloff
Best Minor Supporting Actress – Adrienne Reiswerg
Best Male Singer – Paul Nicely
Best Female Singer – Jessica Biernacki

The King & I

Best Actress – Susan Smith
Best Male Singer – Jordan Donica
Best Female Singer – Susan Smith
Best Performer 18 & Under – Thomas Whitcomb

Footlite Spotlights New Stage Rigging and Railing

Footlite Musicals has a new counterweight system on its stage. The system features aluminum guide tracks for the counterweights, dimmable lighting, and a hard-wired plug strip for the first electric rail. It allows curtains and drops to fly in and out of a scene with precision and ease. The system provides additional safety and conforms to the latest standards. It is being used for the first time in Footlite’s production of Oliver!

Aerial Arts, Inc. (AAI), the Indiana professional theatrical rigging company that installed it, also did installations in Hilbert Circle Theatre, the Athenaeum, and Lucas Oil Stadium, as well as other work at the Artsgarden, the Mainstage at IRT and the Murat.

The old system at Footlite Musical’s Hedback Theater was cobbled together components from some older Indianapolis theaters, perhaps the Keith or Lyric. “But there can be no denying that it delivered good service for 60 years,” Herb Dwyer, President of AAI said. “The old system was, perhaps, installed by Thomas Brothers, the precursor to Indianapolis Stage. One of the Thomas’ names is on a beam. According to another ‘tag’ on one of the steel beams, Joe Quinn in 1951 also helped put in the system. Joe was the stage manager for ISO for many, many years later in his career.”

The new rigging and railing system was supported by a $250,000 grant from Lilly Endowment.

Footlite Musicals Receives Federal Grant

Footlite Musicals will restore the exterior of the historic building at the southeast corner of 19th and Alabama Streets as one of 16 federal historic preservation grant recipients in the state. The project is to preserve the exterior masonry, decorative metal balconies and fire escape within the next year. Sitting close to the intersection, the attractive 1896 three-story red brick building features a cutaway corner entrance, a rounded turret above, and rough-cut limestone lintels and sills.

The building, also known as the Pearson Building and home of Epilogue Theatre, is 113 years old. Footlite Musicals is now in its 54th season and has owned this building and the 84 year-old Hedback Theater that make up the Hedback Community Arts Center since 1976.

The Hedback Community Arts Center is situated on land originally deeded to Samuel Henderson, first mayor of Indianapolis, in 1821. The site also was home to the state fairgrounds starting in 1861, Camp Morton and 7,000 Union troops during the Civil War, a federal prisoner camp, and eventually part of the Herron-Morton Place neighborhood.

Footlite Musicals currently presents eight musicals a year–four main stage productions, a smaller cabaret show, a show by high school students, one by college-age students, and a summer workshop for children ages 6 to 12. Leasing its space from Footlite Musicals, Epilogue Players presents six comedy, drama, or musical shows a year using the talents of the over-50 crowd.

Footlite Musicals also recently purchased the parking lot southeast of the complex, thanks to a $350,000 grant from the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation.

This project will be funded in part by the $36,750 grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Fund administered by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archeology, and also by Footlite’s “Hedback to the Future” fund, by a grant from the Central Indiana Community Foundation and Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, and by a grant from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the City of Indianapolis, and King Park Area Development Corporation.

Footlite Musicals Purchases Parking Lot Through Generous Grant

The board of directors of Footlite Musicals is happy to announce the purchase of the paved parking lot behind its home theatre, the Hedback Community Theater at 1847 North Alabama Street in Indianapolis, IN. The lot was purchased last week from Warwick & Associates, LLC, through a generous grant from the Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation, Inc.

Footlite has been using the parking lot, which also fronts on North New Jersey Street, since the Hedback became the theatre’s home in 1974. The 83-year building was the original home of the Indianapolis Civic Theater before its move to the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

The late Indianapolis businessman Phil Hedback and his wife Betty purchased the building for Footlite, but had not sold the group the parking lot at the time of his death. The purchase of the lot secures ample parking in the future for Footlite’s patrons and those of the adjacent Epilogue Players.