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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