Theater groups have plans for Turner Hall in Village of East Davenport
The greatest collaboration at the newly christened Village Theatre in the Village of East Davenport may never take place on the stage.
Instead, it may come from five different Quad-City area theater groups, in various stages of getting established, who are planning to use the East Village’s former Turner Hall as their home.
New Ground Theatre, My Verona Productions, Riverbend Theatre Collective, Prenzie Players and Scott Community College all are planning to work together and become the resident companies of the circa-1921 building.
“The Quad-Cities has been crying out for a small, 100- to 150-seat theater for a while,” said Chris Jansen, New Ground’s artistic director. “There’s a need, there’s an opportunity.”
My Verona has already staged the comedy “Inside Out” in the space, and the recently formed Riverbend will perform “Elegies: A Song Cycle” later this month. Scott Community College, which had used a small stage on campus and the downtown Capitol Theatre for its shows, will perform Noel Coward’s “Design For Living” at the East Village venue in June.
Jansen said the groups are leasing the building with the possibility of owning it in the future.
“Our dream is to buy it and renovate it,” she said.
New Ground had done its productions at Rivermont Collegiate in Bettendorf and the Annie Wittenmyer Complex in Davenport until the beginning of the current season, when it shifted focus to a play-reading series at the River Music Experience’s Redstone Room in Davenport.
Jansen said she was looking for a new home for New Ground when she passed Turner Hall, next to the softball diamonds in the East Village.
“I had no idea it was as much of a theater as it was,” said Jansen, who recalled taking gymnastic lessons in the space as a child. “You don’t get much closer to ‘almost a theater’ than that.”
The building already has a stage, and Jansen said she and the others involved envision minimal changes to establish classrooms, a green room, a lobby and a proscenium stage.
Scott Community College theater director Steve Flanigin said he can see possibilities for the building.
“It’s a great multi-use facility,” said Flanigin, whose students perform on an 11½-foot-deep stage. “My students enjoy performing in different spaces. They’re always saying, ‘Can we take this on tour, can we take this to another school?’”
Allison Collins-Elfline, the director of Riverbend, moved to the Quad-Cities from Cincinnati last summer and said she is used to a spirit of collaboration among theaters.
“That sort of thing happens all the time there because there’s a lot more theater companies there and a lot more performance spaces there,” she added.
Preliminary blueprints for the facility include about 70 retractable seats that can be used for a traditional theater setting or removed for action taking place on the main floor.
All involved, including Prenzie, which plays its productions on the floor, want that versatility. Collins-Elfline said her first production will take place at the wooden bar that runs the length of the auditorium area.
The theater companies also want to make the facility available for meetings and social events when it’s not being used by their respective groups.
“I’d like to make it as accessible to the neighbors as possible,” Jansen said.
“You just keep it as occupied as possible with events,” Flanigin said. “It’s like a house. If you leave a house unattended, it gets harder and harder to refurbish it.”
The theater has a new exterior sign, financed by Paul Schnell, who occupies the Edward D. Jones Investment office next door.
“One of our goals in the Village is to be the premier historic shopping and family entertainment district in the area,” he said. “This fits in very well with that.”
The logistics of balancing five theater companies on one schedule shouldn’t be a problem, said representatives of all the groups involved.
“Constant communication is the key,” Jansen said.
Sharing the space will only help each other, everyone agreed.
“I like it because we all have different missions and we all have different types of shows we’re wanting to do,” Collins-Elfline said. “Hopefully, that will get us one big, giant audience.”
David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com.
BY THE NUMBERS
The Old Turner Hall in the Village of East Davenport is part of a movement that began more than 155 years ago in what is now the Quad-Cities. The 150th anniversary of the first Turner society in the area was marked in 2002.
The Turners had a profound effect on the community and the nation. They were descended from the turnvereins (gymnastic clubs) founded in Germany in the early 1800s.
With the motto “A Sound Mind in a Sound Body,” Turners emphasized physical fitness along with “liberty, enlightenment and prosperity.” Over the years, the Quad-Cities counted a dozen Turner societies.
The East Davenport Turners were organized in 1891. The former Turners hall at 2113 E. 11th St. has hosted a wide variety of events during its long history.