Most of the remaining businesses at Steeplegate Mall in Concord must clear out by the end of January. Among them is the Hatbox Theatre.
A developer plans to tear down the majority of the mall and build apartments, offices, restaurants and shops.
Andrew Pinard is the owner and a founder of Hatbox. He joined NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa to talk about what this means for his theater and the arts scene in Concord.
Transcript
Hatbox has called Steeplegate Mall home for nine seasons at this point. How did you feel when you received the news that you would no longer be able to use this location?
Well, it was not unexpected news. We had received eviction notices almost two years ago—us and the whole interior of the mall. So we knew that this was a limited time frame that we were likely to be there, even from when we moved in. We used to keep track of how many stores left the mall. Then towards the end, we were actually just counting up how many stores remained because it was easier to keep track of that.
Every store that was there, whether they were a national chain or a small mom-and-pop shop, all started with a dream. They all wanted to do something and provide some value to the community that they were in. And so, to have somebody from outside decide that you're not part of our dream anymore is disheartening. It’s downright tragic in a lot of ways that a community would, all of a sudden, give up on a portion of its residents because they didn’t believe that they should be here.
You've spoken to the unique experience that Hatbox provides. It's a smaller, more intimate venue than other theaters that we have here in Concord or across the state. What about your space at Steeplegate made attending a Hatbox production special?
The proximity. The fact that you're only four seats away from the stage means at no point are you not a part of the performance. You're moved by the people who are sitting next to you. You're moved by the people who are sitting across from you. So that level of intimacy in the space has a significant impact on audiences, and it has a kind of a biofeedback. The artists also react to this kind of wave of emotion.
What does this mean for your actors and for the art scene here in Concord?
Losing a space like this, you're not just losing a venue. You're not just losing ticket revenue to a community. You're losing a whole team of people that become assets, not just for that one venue, but for all of the other community organizations that are doing their shows in their spaces. We've seen a lot of people come to Concord that have then participated in other shows around Concord or Laconia because they got their initial experience at Hatbox. So it's really about being a place to bring people together.
What is that final curtain call going to feel like for you?
It’s hard. It’ll be a turning of a season, it’ll be an opening of another chapter. I mean, Hatbox, we’re very, very grateful to be in the city of Concord. I'm very hopeful and excited that there may be an opportunity for Hatbox to exist beyond this venue. Unfortunately, we're in a time frame where the performing arts world is under a lot of challenges in terms of getting people out to see the shows. And so, if I had anything to say towards this today, I would suggest that we all need to advocate for locally grown productions.
