Vicksburg Play House Burns!

Blaze damages theater; electrical works blamed
By Sam Knowlton
[6/27/06]
Vicksburg Post

Fire believed to have started in wiring spread through Parkside Playhouse Monday afternoon, badly damaging the community theater and injuring a firefighter.“I smelled smoke in the green room,” said Jodie Johnson, one of about three people in the building at Iowa and Confederate avenues who called firefighters at 4:25 p.m. “I shut the door and left.”Vicksburg firefighters attacked the blaze from outside and by going in. Capt. Harold Gaines was among the first to enter and was burned on one ear and part of his face, Chief Keith Rogers said.“We have a hood that seals up, but his must've pushed back,” Rogers said. Gaines was treated and released, said Amanda Hebert of River Region Medical Center, where Gaines was taken.Three volunteers were inside the concrete block building counting T-shirts following a children's theater workshop held over the weekend.As news of the flames spread, members of the Vicksburg Theatre Guild, the nonprofit organization that owns the structure, drove to the scene. Among them was director of building and grounds Garrett Wallace who said a course of action would be charted as soon as the extent of damage could be determined. The VTG had fire insurance on the building, he added.
The group of 300 or more members stages several plays a year, including annual seasons of “Gold in the Hills,” which, according to VTG history, generated enough money for the group to buy Cedar Grove Mansion in the 1940s. Selling that building about 30 years ago provided seed money to build Parkside Playhouse, the VTG's first home specifically built for theatrical productions.The playhouse is a metal structure with a metal frame, Wallace said. Large parts of its roof are also metal but other parts are shingles on wood, he added.One of the shingle-roof sections, on the north side of the building, was broken through by flames during the firefight.Rogers said this morning that although it hasn't been made official, it appeared a short or other wiring failure may have been the trigger.
“From an outside view it probably happened in the electrical room,” Wallace said. None of the volunteers were in that room, which contains the theater's lighting controls, when the fire started.Joel Stroud, who was in the building, said Johnson had gone to try on a T-shirt from the workshop, Fairy Tale Theatre, when she smelled smoke.“I gathered up all the T-shirts,” Stroud said. “When I was leaving, smoke started coming down the hall.”Wallace said he left the theater about 9 only to get a second call that fire crews had returned. Police and fire personnel were making hourly checks.“There was fire hidden in the building,” he said. “There were no flames - just a lot of smoke. And, the fire department had pulled down more of the roof material.”Fire investigators expected to determine the actual cause of the fire after an investigation this morning.

‘Show will go on,' determined members say
By Lauchlin Fields
[6/27/06]
Vicksburg Post

Grief and determination were both on display by members of the Vicksburg Theatre Guild Monday after their 29-year-old Parkside Playhouse was damaged by fire and props and costumes were lost to smoke and flames.“It's like seeing a family member in dire distress,” said Jim Miller of the scene - 50 to 60 people in the parking lot at Iowa and Confederate avenues crying and hugging.The room with the most damage is believed to be where props from “Gold in the Hills,” the world's longest running melodrama, were stored. “Gold” was to open its 71st season next Friday and it will - somewhere and perhaps a little later - members said.“We were scheduled to begin next weekend and our goal is not to open much later than that,” said Garrett Wallace, who has been involved with the theater since 1992.Miller portrays the villain, Richard Murgatroyd, in “Gold,” noted in the Guiness Book of World Records for its record run. The play began in 1936 in Vicksburg, not long after the Vicksburg Theatre Guild was chartered as the state's first amateur theatrical troupe.For Miller, one of his lines from Act III of the melodrama rings true - “Curses,” he said.
Today's players must now confront setbacks previous members also faced. In April 1974, fire destroyed the Sprague, a sternwheel towboat berthed at City Front and used as the stage for “Gold” in the 1960s and early-'70s. Years later, the old Bowmar Avenue Baptist Church on Bowmar Avenue, that housed VTG for years, also went up in flames. The guild had already moved to its current location when the fire occurred. Parkside Playhouse was constructed as the guild's first state-of-the art home in 1977, with the first performance in 1978.It is unimpressive from the outside, with simple concrete block lines outlining the interior's seating, stage and fly areas.“There is a lot of history in this building - for an awful lot of people in this city,” Wallace said.Membership fees and ticket sales fund each season of plays. VTG received a grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission earlier this year to renovate portions of the building. The first phase, painting the exterior, was completed in March.
One of the items thought to be lost in the fire is a “Gold in the Hills” sign from the days that the production was staged from the Sprague.“We won't give up easily,” Wallace said.He added that members are looking for a place to have “Gold,” but no decision has been made yet.“We have people tracking that down right now,” he said. “It will go on somewhere.”The next season of VTG is scheduled to begin with Neil Simon's “God's Favorite,” this fall.“We're going to get back up - no question - on Sept. 23 - right here,” Wallace said. “We will need continued support of the community and renewed support from past members.”Miller said he knows the show will go on because of the family feel of the group.“Being involved in plays and productions, you get so emotionally involved,” he said. “It's an emotional experience. There are people who consider this their world.”He is no different.“It's family - it's home,” he said.