Magenta Theater fundraiser looks to get temperatures right

Magenta Theater really moved up in the world in 2016, when it fled a tight shoebox theater on lower Main Street and made its new home a few blocks to the north. Its spacious, comfortable new space finally included a decent lobby (where you can buy beer, wine and treats) and convenient restrooms and dressing rooms. To those amenities the nonprofit theater added 150 seats on stadium-style risers, so there’s really no bad seat in the house; more recently, Magenta also installed an eye-catching marquee over its Main Street entrance.

All that’s left now is a decent way to actually see what’s happening on stage, without risking anybody’s life or the theater’s bank account. Those are the problems with Magenta’s aged, tungsten stage-lighting system: it gets infernally hot and costs a lot to operate.

“The lights can get so hot, you can light a cigarette off them. Our technicians have to wear gloves and climb these tall ladders to change the color gels,” said Jaynie Roberts, the founder and executive director of Magenta. “They’re up on ladders handling these very hot instruments. It’s not cool.”

What does get cool is the audience, she added — because the heat from those lights requires cranking up the air conditioning. So patrons go from too hot to too cold, but never reach just right. That’s not part of the entertainment experience Magenta has in mind, Roberts said.

What it does have in mind, Roberts said, is a state-of-the-art LED lighting system that stays cool, costs less to operate and offers many more colors and effects, available at the touch of a button rather than the ascent of a ladder.

Magenta has applied for a grant to cover half the cost of a new LED system, Roberts said, but it must ante up the other half itself: approximately $60,000. Roberts doesn’t expect to be able to raise that in one performance, she said, but Magenta will give its all this Saturday night. Its Shine a Light on Magenta variety show isn’t cheap — tickets are $50 — but the evening extravaganza will feature tons of entertainment. (And, she added, additional donations will be gratefully accepted.)

There’s a short, original comedy by Roberts called “Blind Date”; still more comedy in an unscripted presentation cooked up in the moment — with audience help — by the quick thinkers of Magenta Improv Theater; a country-bluegrass concert by the Bluegrass Belles, featuring Magenta talents Lori Watson, Kathleen Sykora, Hazel Peterson and Michele Glover, plus a special appearance by band leader and all around vocal powerhouse Linda Lee Michelet.

But the centerpiece, Roberts said, will be the debut of Magenta Rocks, the theater company’s own rock choir. That’s a long-standing dream of Roberts’, dating back to college days in her native England and her jealousy of friends who were cool enough to form their own rock bands. Roberts said she was never that cool, but on a recent return trip she discovered that large rock choirs belting out all their favorite old covers “are a really big thing in England. They’re huge,” she said.

Finally, she realized, she’d found her ticket into rock stardom — along with about 35 of her Magenta friends, she said. “It is so friendly and so much fun,” she said. Magenta Rocks will belt out some epic tunes in even bigger, badder renditions than the ones you’re used to: “We Will Rock You” by Queen, “Call Me” by Blondie, “Carry On My Wayward Son,” by Kansas, “The Sound of Silence,” by Simon and Garfunkel (via heavy metal band Disturbed), “Zombie,” by the Cranberries, and “Ballad of Mona Lisa,” by Panic! at the Disco.

Maybe you know some of those songs better than others? The same goes for the choir, which joyfully took up on the challenge. “Older members of the choir found themselves introduced to a whole new range of music they’d never heard before,” said choir director Erin Knettle.

Appealing to older is the underlying idea behind this choir, according to Roberts: after its world-premier performance at Shine a Light, Magenta Rocks means to add many more members — the target is 100 singers, Roberts said — and barnstorm its way through local retirement homes and care facilities, where its huge sound and huge spirits should lift a whole lot of youthful smiles.

But your $50 ticket gets you still more than all that stage entertainment. Everyone also gets two complimentary drinks (beer, wine, soda), appetizers from Elements (formerly Willem’s on Main) and a special, themed chocolate truffle from Fleur Chocolatte.