TNIM celebrates new green room

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Theatre Night in Merrickville (TNIM) held an open house last Friday to celebrate the completion of their new green room at the Merrickville Community Centre. Even though TNIM has been entertaining the community for over 40 years, they do not have their own theatre. Instead, they have a great working agreement with the Village. TNIM contributes occasional grants and a good percentage of ticket sales to the municipality in exchange for storage, rehearsal and performance space. They also use the old school house in Eastons Corners to rehearse larger productions and, for the past two years, they have used the back room in the Firehall to paint sets.

The creation of TNIM’s green room at the Community Centre is the work of a 9-member reno crew led by Rod Fournier, a retired engineer and carpenter for TNIM for the past decade. The green room is traditionally a room, painted a restful green, used as the actor’s lounge backstage in a theatre. It is where the actors gather before performances and between scenes.

TNIM volunteers have turned the upstairs room at the Community Centre into such a space. It is a soundproof room, suitable for all greenroom functions, plus storage space for costumes, make-up, lobby decorations and props that were previously kept in the white boxcar that used to sit behind the Community Centre. There is also now a solid wall above the kitchen, which regular Community Centre users will be please to know makes sure that anything happening upstairs is not audible in the lower part of the building.

TNIM is now getting ready for their Spring production of The Kitchen Witches, set for April 5-7. It is a modern comedy by Canadian performer and playwright, Caroline Smith. It is being directed by Timothy Molloy and the cast includes three of last Spring’s Farndale Ladies: Andrea Howard, Ann MacLaughlan and Vicki Graham, as well as newcomer, Marc Alarie.

TNIM would like to thank the hundreds of people who attended their Fall production of a Trio of One-Act Plays, and the dozens of volunteers who made it happen. They would also like to recognize the staff and management at the Goose and Gridiron for their exceptional service for the past year after lengthy final rehearsals and performances.

“As ever, it takes a village to raise a curtain,” member of TNIM, Andrea Howard, wrote in their press release about the green room.

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