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A sprinkler pipe burst at Speculative Drama’s performance and rehearsal space during last week’s snow and ice storm, dumping several inches of water on top of the theater company’s sound and lighting equipment, instruments, costumes and decorations.
On Monday, Jan. 15, a neighbor heard a loud sound coming from the Southeast 2nd Avenue and Hawthorne Boulevard rehearsal space, called “The Steep and Thorny Way to Heaven.” The neighbor told creative director Myrrh Larsen that it looked like “a waterfall pouring off of your roof.”
“The entire emergency sprinkler system emptied out into the space, so there were several inches of standing gray water,” Larsen says. As for whether anything is salvageable, “it’s not looking good.”
Speculative Drama has operated The Steep and Thorny Way to Heaven for 13 years as a rehearsal space for theater, music and circus acts, as well as for workshops, community events and performances. They have set up a Go Fund Me to help recover from the flood.
“It’s still hard to talk about [the damage],” Larsen said today, in between calls with the company’s insurance company.
The damage included a 20-year collection of Larsen’s personal, professional and vintage music equipment: “Amps literally sloshed when we moved them,” they said.
Speculative Drama is in midrun of a production of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which is taking place at the bar Angelo’s. The location proved fortuitous: The company had been storing Twelfth Night props and costumes at the Southeast Hawthorne bar so they were untouched by the flood. The show, directed by Larsen, will go on as planned with the final two performances this weekend.
“Honestly, we are devastated by the loss,” Larsen says. “At the same time, we’ve had an outpouring of care from the community and we’re really grateful for that.”