What was available was either way too big and too expensive or poorly managed and dirty. I just felt that I could do a much better job. There s a huge demand for small-theater space, said Jeff Nelson, the city s director of cultural development, and it would be wonderful for a few of those new spaces to be located in St. Paul so that we can build our small theater scene. No one would dispute Nelson s claim that the space crunch for the Twin Cities itinerant theater companies is acute. Supersmall start-up companies can make use of places like the Bryant Lake Bowl and Acadia Cabaret Theater.
Larger companies have their own home.
But small professional groups, with shows that require more space and technical resources, are caught in the middle. It s getting alarming, said Wendy Knox, artistic director of Frank Theatre. Knox hasn t seen the proposed theater, but she said Theater Space Project has the potential to be competitive. Working against Theater Space Project is the fact that it s a new organization with no track record that has yet to raise anything in terms of significant donations. And running a small rental theater is fraught with challenges.