Enfield
After a decade of coexisting within the same building, the theater company and the Enfield Public Library are clashing over noise generated by Shaker Bridge.
The theater company leases the space above the library, and library officials are complaining about the volume of noise that makes its way to the ground floor. They’ve got another concern: They say what comes through the ceiling and is heard by library patrons isn’t always family-friendly.
“You can hear everything in this building. We had story time this morning, and I know downstairs can hear (children) jumping and running,” librarian Melissa Hutson said on Wednesday, referring to the town offices that occupy the basement below the library. “Upstairs is the same way. This building’s old and there’s not a lot of insulation.”
Hutson and Phil Cronenwett, chairman of the library trustees, took their concerns to the town’s Selectboard earlier this month, hoping Enfield officials could help broker a solution.
Because the theater leases its space from the town, the Selectboard has the authority to terminate its yearly lease of $350 a month.
The theater uses the upper floor of Whitney Hall to build sets, rehearse and perform plays during its season, which usually runs from October through April. The library is open from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesdays, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Story times are usually held on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
Problems between the theater and library have become “overwhelming, with noise and adult language being of particular concern,” Hutson told the board, according to draft minutes posted on the town’s website.
“She said library staff were getting tired of asking the theater director to keep the noise down to more acceptable levels,” the minutes said.
But the complaints were news to Bill Coons, Shaker Bridge’s artistic director.
“I’ve been running the theater in that space for 10 years. I’ve had, I think, on two, maybe three occasions someone from the library come up and ask if we could lower the noise level for 15 or 20 minutes because they’re having a kids’ reading group,” Coons said on Wednesday.
“That’s it. No one has talked to me about this at all,” he said.
Founded 10 years ago, Shaker Bridge Theatre brings plays to Enfield it regards as “gems that have risen from New York’s off-Broadway theaters, from London’s fringe, from the darling auspices of regional theaters in America,” according to the organization’s website.
The performances often touch on adult subject matter. Shaker Bridge’s next performance, 4000 Miles, focuses on the relationship between “an elderly grandmother and her neo-hippie grandson,” according to the Los Angeles Times. And its last piece, Love Alone, explored a woman’s death during surgery and the event’s impact on her same-sex partner.
“I run a professional theater and I’m not about to compromise that goal in rehearsals,” Coons said. “I’m not going out of my way to be noisy but, by the same token, that’s not how rehearsals work.”
However, Hutson said she’s simply asking for sensitivity to the fact that library patrons and children can often hear rehearsals. She told the Selectboard that obscenities could be heard clearly in the library during every rehearsal.
“Our main concern was that since it’s a rotating cast of people, I feel like Bill could be doing a better job of maybe emphasizing the fact that they share the building,” said Hutson, who was hired in October 2014.
Coons said he can recall once when librarians asked him to turn down music during a rehearsal, and said he obliged in December when Hutson requested that a rehearsal take a break while children were in the library. Library officials referred to the second incident when meeting with the Selectboard and characterized Coons as “rude.”
“I told her we’d take a break, since we were due for one anyway,” Coons wrote in an email on Wednesday. “I did not tell her it was nice to see her, so maybe that was seen as rude.”
It might be impossible to mollify library officials, Coons warned. The building isn’t soundproof, he said, and it’s not feasible to schedule rehearsals so they don’t overlap with library hours.
It’s also not certain what the town would ask him to do about the noise. Although Town Manager Steve Schneider told the Selectboard earlier this month he would speak with Coons, no one from the town has done so.
Phone messages left for Schneider and Selectboard members on Wednesday were not returned.
“And here’s the big question: Why, when this was apparently a large part of the meeting, wasn’t I invited to represent the theater?” Coons asked in an email.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.