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  • Tag - The Actors' Group To Move To Dole Cannery Square


TAG – The Actors’ Group announces today it will move from its current Chinatown theater to a new space in Dole Cannery Square on the ground level facing the Regal Cinema movie theaters across Iwilei Road. The move will take place over the summer and be complete in time for TAG’s fall season which will open with a Hawaii premiere of the British comedy Duets by Peter Quilter followed by a world premiere of Ibsen’s Ghosts in a new translation by TAG Artistic Director, Brad Powell.

“It was a unanimous decision by the board,” said Eric Nemoto, TAG board President. “The clincher was that the Dole location allows us to provide our audience with free validated parking in the Regal theaters parking lot directly across the street.”

While the size of the stage and the number of seats will be about the same as the current theater, the new TAG space will have more room backstage for costume, dressing rooms, and set design.

“We also expect to be able to partner with the Hawaii International Film Festival,” said Richard Tillotson, TAG board member. “We’ve had preliminary discussions with them, and we think there could be a lot of synergy. The people who attend films at HIFF are the kind of audience that should be attracted to our shows, and our theater will be right across the street.”

“We welcome TAG to the neighborhood,” said Chuck Boller, Executive Director of the Hawaii International Film Festival. “We think their offerings of live theater that both challenges as well as entertains and goes on throughout the year will be very complementary to our festivals of challenging, entertaining films in the spring and fall.”

“One thing that won’t change,” said Brad Powell, “is the kind of shows we do. We are committed to doing unique, intimate, live theater TAG is a nearly all-volunteer operation, so we’re able to do plays not because we have to, but because we want to.”

Q. & A. ON THE TAG MOVE TO DOLE CANNERY SQUARE:

Q. Why are you moving?
A. It’s another step up for TAG. We’ll have a better space for our shows and a more comfortable experience for our audience, especially the validated parking. PLUS, being on the FIRST FLOOR provides EASY ACCESS for anyone who has had difficulty hiking up the stairs in our current location.

Q. What else is over there?
A. Regal Cinemas, the Hawaii International Film Festival, and Ballet Hawaii to name a few. In the evenings and weekends when people are attending movies, it’s a busy place. And it’s jumping when the Hawaii International Film Festival is going on. Last fall, HIFF had around 75,000 people. All the people going to the movies and to HIFF will be walking right by our new theater and seeing the posters and banners for our shows.

Q. You’re moving away from all the action and the other theaters in Chinatown, why?
A. TAG shows are a pretty unique experience. We think people come to TAG to see TAG shows, not because of anything the theater might be next to.

Q. What about the security over there? Is it safe?
A. A great added benefit of our new location is that Dole provides security for the building 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. At least one security guard is always stationed right in front of the building no more than 20 feet from the entrance to the theater.

Q. If you’ve got a slick new space, does that mean TAG is going to change the kind of shows you do?
A. No. We’re committed to doing unique, intimate, live theater, often the kind of shows other theaters in town can’t or don’t do. That won’t change.

Q. What kinds of shows are those?

A. In the last year, we’ve done the Hawaii premiere of the latest David Mamet comedy, a locally adapted Hawaii premiere of a W.H. Auden Christmas play, a world premiere of a play by a London playwright that is set in 1930’s Japan, a one-woman monologue, Happy Days by Samuel Beckett, another play in our August Wilson series, an almost unknown, campy courtroom drama by Aynn Rand that was a huge hit for us, and we’ve just wrapped our staging of the dark, edgy play, Top Dog Underdog that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 and was an enormous critical and word-of-mouth success that had people lining up to get in. To open next season, we’re doing a Hawaii premiere of a British comedy, Duets, that is funny, entertaining and an exciting acting challenge. We’re also premiering a hundred-year old Ibsen classic, Ghosts. It’s a premiere because it’s in a new translation by Brad Powell, TAG’s artistic director who (surprise!) turns out to have lived in Norway for two years and is fluent in Ibsen’s native language. So ... it’s those kinds of shows.

Q. Who goes to shows like that?
A. We have a very dedicated audience that has grown with us over fourteen years and followed us when we moved from the Yellow Brick Theater in Kaka`ako to our current location in Chinatown. We’re confident they’ll move with us to our new location at Dole, but we also think this new location will allow us to develop a new, wider audience. We can’t afford traditional advertising, so word of mouth and a “retail location” with good street traffic - the moviegoers to Regal and HIFF – should help us a lot.

Q. Where can you eat dinner?
A. Wherever you eat dinner now. It’s less than a five-minute drive from Chinatown or Aloha Tower to our new theater. Because of the free validated parking at Regal, it’s not really an issue. If you don’t want to drive, both Sam Choy’s and Zippy’s on Nimitz are within walking distance. There are also a couple of good restaurants on the ewa side of Dole Cannery Square facing Costco, and there’s a food court in Dole Cannery, which is going to be moving down into the space adjacent to our theater.

Q. How do you get to this validated parking and where is the theater exactly?
A. You enter the Regal Theatres parking lot off of Pacific Street one block ewa of Nimitz. (Make the turn at Hilo Hattie.) There’s a five-story covered parking lot with a sign “Regal Cinema Parking.” Once you are parked, remember to take along your ticket for validating and take the elevator all the way down to the ground floor. When you come out, instead of going to Regal theaters, use the crosswalk and go to the TAG Theater directly across the street. We have our own entrance facing the sidewalk, and you can’t miss it. If you want, you can also get off the parking elevator at the starred, second level. There’s an elevated pedestrian skyway that crosses the street to Dole Cannery. Once there, take the escalator down to the ground floor. This could be a good way to go if it’s raining. You’ll be under cover the entire time.

Q. Does TheBus go there?
A. Yes. There’s a stop directly in front of the theater.

Q. How will this affect the Young Playwrights Festival?
A. We will stage the Festival in our current space in Chinatown on Smith Street as planned.

Q. When will the new theater be ready?
A. We can’t wait either! The move will take place in July, and the build-out will occur over the following weeks. We may have a “Housewarming Party” beforehand, but the theater will definitely be ready for the opening of Duets on August 27.

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