If you can’t have watchers in the seats you might as well as have workers in the scaffolding. That’s the idea at Concord City Auditorium over the past couple of weeks, where lights have been upgraded, curtains replaced and the gold arch re-gilded in a roughly $80,000 project by the Friends of the Audi, as the auditorium is commonly known, and city staff.
“We’ve had quite a bit more downtime than we usually get. That enabled us to spend a lot more time in here,” said Jamie Bardwell, public properties supervisor for the city of Concord.
The improvement project for the 835-seat auditorium is not trivial. Just putting up scaffolding to reach the archway some 40 feet above the stage took two days.
“The scaffolding goes up then the drapes come down, then city painters reguild the arch above drapes, then (contractor) Port Lighting Systems puts up new drapes, which were ordered earlier this year, then the scaffolding comes down,” said Carol Bagan of the Friends of the Audi. “Everything has to be in order. You don’t want to put up new drapes and then do painting above the drapes.”
It’s been a long time since workers have been up there. The velvet “surround” curtains under the arch, for example, were probably installed during major renovation in the late 1920s.
“It’s been about 30 years since the archway was painted,” said Bardwell. “It was last done with oil-based paint, which tends to dull over time and darken. This time we used a metallic acrylic … which will hold up.”
The auditorium on the west side of City Hall was built in 1904 and has had its ups and downs – one past city manager wanted to replace it with offices – but decades of effort by the all-volunteer Friends of the Audi has made a difference, having raised an estimated $2 million, much from small donors rather than big grants, over the past 30 years. Everything from seats to lobby to lights and dressing rooms have been upgraded or replaced.
This week’s work was slated for the summer when the Audi is usually closed. The pandemic ended that plan but shifted the downtime to winter.
Normally the Audi would be busy now with performances by local and professional arts groups and gatherings by civic organizations and clubs. There are just two private events slated coming between now and Christmas, then it will be dark until spring. After that, who knows?
“It’s a shame that light entertainment has to stop, but it’s more important that everybody stay healthy and alive and be ready for the next act,” said Bagan.
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
