Theater faces crucial vote

Officials overlooked that Mad Horse Theatre Co. in South Portland needed Planning Board approval

SOUTH PORTLAND — Less than two months after relocating its performance stage to South Portland, Mad Horse Theatre Company found itself facing a Planning Board vote that could bring the curtain down on it forever.

Since May 2009, Mad Horse has rented the former Hutchins School at 24 Mosher St., using it as an administrative office, rehearsal hall and storage space for the a quarter-century’s collection of props, sets and costumes. It’s professional performances, however, were put on at Lucid Stage on Baxter Boulevard, in Portland. But in August, when Lucid announced it would fold at the end of September, Mad Horse scrambled, gaining city permission to turn its practice space into the company’s main stage.

According to David Jacobs, president of the Mad Horse board of directors, the theater spent $15,000 converting the front half of the school’s ground floor into an intimate, 48-seat “black box” theater space. But then, weeks after staging the first of four shows in its 2012-2013 season, the theater learned it was operating illegally.

But the fault for that rested squarely on the South Portland’s shoulders, as City Manager Jim Gailey explained last week to the City Council. Although the City Council adopted a special proclamation welcoming Mad Horse to South Portland October 4, officials overlooked the fact that it needed fire department and code enforcement inspections in order to gather any large groups under its roof for commercial purposes.

More importantly to the theater’s operation, it needs Planning Board approval of a “special exception” to expand previously approved use of the Hutchins School to include it becoming a “place of public assembly.” The vote by the Planning Board was set to take place Tuesday night, after The Current's print deadline.

The vote, said Jacobs, was crucial to the future of the theater organization.

“At the risk of, ironically, sounding dramatic, if the theater group does not win this approval by the Planning Board, it would most likely put this 26-year-old nonprofit theater group out of business,” wrote Jacobs in a plea to supporters circulated on Facebook. Mad Horse, added Jacobs has “no . . . financial resources to move.”

Mad Horse’s next production, the Maine premiere of the Pulitzer-nominated play "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" by Rajiv Joseph, is scheduled to open Jan. 17.

At its Dec. 3 meeting, the City Council took the first step in clearing the way for Mad Horse to continue, voting unanimously to amend the company’s lease agreement.         

Although all councilors voted on the changes, including authorization to use the building as a “place of assembly,” Mayor Tom Blake said he had “a real concern” with acting in advance of Tuesday’s public hearing and Planning Board decision.

“We are approving something before it goes to the Planning Board for public input,” he said. “That will influence [its] decision and, in one sense, will even negate even having a public discussion because the council has already approved the change.”

“Personally, I love the idea, but I think we’ve got this backwards,” said Blake.

However, new Councilor Melissa Linscott, co-owner with her husband of a real estate agency, noted that Mad Horse must have lease approval from its landlord before approaching the Planning Board. In amending the lease, Councilor Tom Coward, a real estate attorney, agreed, the council was simply acting as landlord and not issuing any public sanction.

Gailey agreed, noting that Mad Horse will not be able to make good on its new lease allowing public assembly unless the Planning Board gives its blessing.

“They would not be able to get an occupancy permit” without it, said Gailey.

Code and fire officials have recently completed building inspections and should report favorably on Tuesday, said Gailey.

“It was really nothing major, but they has had to do some things,” he said, listing requirements such as posting lighted exit signs.

Planning Director Tex Haeuser said Dec. 6  that his staff will recommend that the Planning Board grant the special exception.

“The standard for planning board approval of a special exception use is whether the use in question is comparable in its impacts with an average example of that type of use,” he said in an email reply to questions about Tuesday’s vote. “Compared with other activity/assembly centers, such as the nearby Boys and Girls Club, the Mad Horse use would appear to generate the same or fewer impacts, like traffic.”

Already, there are two community theaters in the same East End neighborhood. Lyric Music Theater on Sawyer Street seats 183, while the Portland Players facility on Cottage Road can accommodate 350. Mad Horse could squeeze in another couple of seats for a maximum of 50. Unlike the two nearby theaters, it has its own parking lot, with room for 27 vehicles.

Per Tuesday’s Planning Board agenda, Mad House could stage “no more than 90 performances a year” at the Hutchins School. Gailey said the city received “no complaints from abutters or in the vicinity of the neighborhood,” associated with Mad Horse’s October production of David Mamet’s "November," which reportedly sold out all 12 shows.

Gailey stressed before the council that those shows where put on, “without any knowledge to them that their lease prohibited it.”

The fault, he said, was purely his own.

“You know, it just fell though the cracks, that’s all I can say,” he explained in a telephone interview following the council meeting.

“We came upon knowledge of the plays coming kind of late in the game and it was partly me not knowing the lease as well as I should have,” said Gailey, noting that the former community development director, Erik Carson, who resigned shortly after being placed on administrative leave Aug. 15, had been the one to handle city matters with Mad Horse, including various maintenance and building improvement obligations on both sides.

Haeuser said that although he is urging adoption of the special exception, the final decision will fall to the Planning Board.

“The members will take the staff recommendation, public testimony, and its own board discussion into consideration before making a decision,” he said.

Afterward, there may yet be wrinkles to iron out. During council debate, Councilor Jerry Jalbert questioned Mad Horse’s deal with the superintendent of the Hutchins School, who gets an apartment on the top floor along with free use of the kitchen on the first floor in return for looking after the building.

“It’s our duty to taxpayers to also get a piece of the rent on that apartment, if any,” he said.

Meanwhile, Councilor Patti Smith, who issued brought forth the welcoming proclamation to Mad Horse during her term as mayor, said, as she did that, that the theater is “good for the neighborhood, and for the city.”

“I’m going to disclose that I was one of those illegal people at that [October] show,” she said. “It was fantastic. It’s a small space. It’s not like there are 500 people. And, really, that building has always been a ‘place of assembly.’”