“We have submitted an idea to the Aviva Community Fund that’s very specifically targeted to our outside venue, the Mary Ellen Burns Amphitheatre,” Karen Hatcher, college executive director. “It’s in dire need of some upgrading prior to any conceptualized vision of being able to replace it down the road. Although we’re first and foremost a teaching venue and have our focus on September to June teaching, our summer performances embrace the community.”
Hatcher said during the summer tourism season in excess of 20,000 people will attend performances staged at the amphitheatre.
“If you’ve ever sat in our very uncomfortable wooden seats in the theatre, redoing it with cushions for the benches is part of it,” she said. “And we need seven new panels for the roof.”
Each year when the roof comes off it has several small pinholes in that are kicked up from pebbles in the college’s parking lot.
Hatcher said the project has been entered into the range of $50,000 to $100,000.
“Just to replace the panels would be in excess of $50,000,” she said. “There are seven of them and they need to be custom made for that specific venue. So we have proposed the new panels and walls along the side,” Hatcher said. “It’s upgrading for the comfort of the people coming to view and, of course, for the safety of our cast members who are on the stage on those wet nights. Wet spots can be very dangerous for dancers.”
One area of the amphitheatre that will need to be address within the next two years is the stage.
“It’s aged,” Hatcher said. “I’m not sure it’s aged well. We do have some signs of some stress fractures that are coming into parts of it. We will have to have that looked at very closely. Will it get us through another couple of summers? That’s my hope.”
As for the current plan, “The ideas have been submitted and we’re watching our daily votes coming in,” she said. “We would certainly like to have more votes.
“We do have brokerage support which puts our idea into a separate broker competition. This year, they’ve really enhanced the competition with a lot of wild draw cards so you can get entered into different pools of being able to access some funding anywhere from $1,000 and upwards. I’m hoping that our votes when we come to the end of round one will be in excess of 1,000.”
The idea is out there and now we’re looking to our community to support us by voting.
Voting can be done through the College of Piping Facebook page or through the Aviva Community Fund website under the College of Piping.
