Theater co. unveils plan for new home

The brick and glass facade of the proposed new theater of the Two River Theatre Company, as shown in this artist's rendering, which will face north along a right of way, will mimic the vintage warehouse buildings in the surrounding district.

42,297-square-foot performing arts venue to cost $10 million

By gloria stravelli

CHRIS KELLY The Two River Theatre Company's new building will cover 1.9 acres of a 4.15-acre site that now accommodates Blaisdell Lumber Co. buildings and fronts Bridge Avenue and West Front and Monmouth streets.

Staff Writer

The profound influence of the arts on human experience isn't usual testimony at municipal hearings, but this week the Red Bank Planning Board got a lesson on the subject from a respected local academic.

Board members listened while Robert Rechnitz, founder of the Red Bank-based Two River Theatre Company (TRTC), explained that an application to build a new $10 million theater in the borough will enrich the lives of residents and foster a sense of community.

"One goal of our mission has always been to create of our audience a community, the texture of whose lives will be deepened and enriched as a community through their sharing a lifetime of evenings in the theater," Rechnitz said at the beginning of a hearing on the theater company's application to develop almost two acres on Bridge Avenue as its future home.

"I believe art provides us with a means of organizing and understanding human experience. Not in the abstractions of philosophy and science but in all of its immediate and concrete reality," Rechnitz told Planning Board members.

"I believe experiencing literature enhances life, challenging our preconceptions, our parochialisms, our easy optimism," he continued. "And I believe theater is the most immediate and least abstract of the arts. Art imitates life, and the theater does it with live actors taking up real space in an actual room it shares with its audience."

The remainder of the hearing was decidedly more mundane at which the Planning Board approved a major subdivision, site plan and variances for the construction of a 42,297-square-foot performing arts venue.

The board heard plans to develop a 300-seat theater on about 1.9 acres on the southerly portion of a 4.15-acre site zoned business/residential that includes seven Blaisdell Lumber Company buildings. The property fronts Bridge Avenue, and West Front and Monmouth streets.

The parcel is comprised of multiple lots owned by the Blaisdell family that will be consolidated into two lots and a right of way. Transfer of title to the property is pending clearance by the DEP on soil remediation issues, Rechnitz, a long-time Red Bank resident, said.

If the DEP indicates no further remediation action is necessary, the theater could be open for the fall 2004 season, Rechnitz projected, adding that a meeting with the state agency is slated for July 8.

According to TRTC attorney Gordon Litwin, the theater site will occupy roughly half of the tract, and the theater company will sell off the remaining two acres to a developer in the future. Blaisdell is expected to continue to operate at the site for the time being, he added.

The site will be divided by a dedicated, 53-foot wide right of way requested by the borough which will provide access off of Bridge Avenue. The right of way is aligned with, and slated to become an extension of, the borough's "W" streets â014 White and Wall â014 under the borough's circulation plan in the future, James Biegen, site planner said.

In addition to the main entrance off Bridge Avenue, access to and from a 100-space parking lot behind the theater building will be available from Monmouth Street. Development of the tract will cause portions of Burrowes Street to be vacated, subject to the approval of the borough council.

The brick and glass design of the theater facade where the main entrance will be located will face the right of way, and the lobby will wrap around to the facade along Bridge Avenue, making the interior lobby visible to the trains traveling on the tracks across the street.

The two-story design by Hardy Holzman & Pfeiffer, New York, will seat 300 around a thrust stage, with the last row of seats no more than about 40 feet from the stage. The two-level theater will provide "an intimate space where the nuances of the acting can be perceived," Rechnitz said. Seating conformation will be flexible so that it can be rearranged.

The building will have three main components: a 75-foot tall, windowless brick stage house for technical equipment, located to the east of a central lobby/auditorium section, with a lobby/rehearsal room section closest to Bridge Avenue.

Project Architect Stewart Jones said the design of the building resonates with the surrounding warehouse district where vintage brick buildings predominate. In addition, new elements â014 mostly transparent, mostly glass â014 rhythmically wrap the exterior, adding a contemporary note to its architectural vocabulary.

The glass exposing the lobby will invite passersby into the theater world, he noted.

"We wanted it to be a building of today," he said, adding, "It's a working theater with somewhat of a warehouse quality with enough finishes to make it a theater."

Waivers granted by the Planning Board included front and side yard setback, an overhang along Bridge Avenue, signs, and design waivers including front yard parking.

Michael Venezia, who owns a garage located along the easterly border of the four-acre site objected to plans to install curbing that will block access to his commercial property via Burrowes Street, a partially improved alleyway. Litwin advised the board that the Blaisdell family denies Venezia's assertions that he has right of use to the property via the tract. Access to the garage, which Venezia leases to tenants, remains via West Front Street.

Rechnitz founded the Two River Theatre Company in 1994, and the company staged productions at Monmouth University for the first three and a half years of its existence. The company moved to its present home at the Algonquin Arts Center in Manasquan four and a half years ago and has sought a permanent venue in Red Bank.

But those plans were delayed, initially by the borough's denial of plans to develop the vacant Anderson warehouse building across the railroad tracks. Instead, the vintage building at the corner of Monmouth Street and Bridge Avenue will be developed as a brew pub by Rechnitz' son, Adam, who also operates Triumph Brewery in Princeton.

Subsequently, purchase of the Blaisdell Lumber site has been held up for years, Rechnitz noted, while the state investigated soil contamination on the Blaisdell Lumber site.

The theater company currently presents four productions per season and anticipates that will grow to seven in the future, Rechnitz said.

In its own home, he said, the theater company will be able to better serve the Red Bank community, offering classes in acting, playwriting, directing, scenic design and construction.

"We will be a resource to the west side, and we will be able to fashion ways of working with children, with the YMCA, with the Children's Cultural Center, and with others," he continued.

Rechnitz said the theater's west-side location is perfect for attracting audiences as well as talent from nearby New York City, which he said is "no longer the heartland of developing theater."

That niche has been taken over by regional theater companies, he said, "and our ambition is to become one of the regional theaters in the country."