PHOTOS BY J ETTA FRASE R

From The
Scaffolds To
The Attic

T

he Attic Theatre hasn't had an easy go of it lately.
Plagued by dwindling audiences, financial prob-
lems and the closing of its Pontiac offshoot, The
Strand, in August of 1994, the tenacious Detroit
theater group had just kicked off what it hoped would be
a healthy season when the official word came: its New
Center space would be felled by a wrecking ball come this
summer.
But almost as soon as the staff started packing the
props, Greektown developer Jimmy Papas and the Attic's
managing director Jim Moran had worked out a deal to
move the Attic back to its original neighborhood. The new

Attic Theatre Managing Director Jim Moran was a founding member
in 1976.

space, on the third floor of Trapper's
Alley, opens tonight, Feb. 2, with a
lavish production of Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night. And Moran, for one, is
happy to be smelling the saganaki yet
again.
"I frankly never wanted to leave the
Greektown area," he says.
One of the Attic's original members,
Moran recalls the theater company's
first space when it opened in Decem-
ber of 1976: on the second floor of the
Pegasus building (the name Attic The-
atre, he points out, is a triple enten-
dre eluding to the second-story
location, the Attica Peninsula in
Greece where theater was born and
the Greektown neighborhood). In No-
vember of 1977, the group moved to There's a new sparked
the first floor of the same building interest in the Attic
(where the Pegasus kitchen now ex- Theatre of Greektown.
ists); from there the theater relocat-
ed a block over to 525 Lafayette, where it remained until
a fire in 1984. Then came the New Center space. (Real
Attic buffs, however, will remember that just after the
fire, the Attic staged one show in the still unrenovated
Fox Theatre.)
"The New Center building had always been a physi-
cally dubious location," Moran says. He knew five years
ago, when the Attic was refused a long-term lease at
the site, that the deteriorating structure would eventu-
ally be torn down. "That's why I started pursuing the
Strand in Pontiac and other things," he says.
Because of the decidedly precarious nature of the Attic's
situation, Moran also constantly checked with the build-
ing's owner, Henry Ford Hospital, to see if wrecking plans

This Week's Best Bets
copies of her other award-win-
ART
ning books. 7:30 p.m.-9 p.m.. Fri-

Birmingham-Bloomfield Art
As‘ociation. Patti Tapper. Artist
of the month for February, hand-
paint,ed furniture and home ac-
cessories. 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Monday-Saturday. 1516 S. Cran
brook Rd., Birmingham. (810)
644-0866.

0

Oak Park Library. Faith Ring-
gold , one of America's best-
lmown African-American female
artists, reads from her new il-
lustrated book, My Dream of
i‘ P
Luther King, and signs

day, Feb. 2. 14200 Oak Park
Blvd. (810) 691-7480.

Detroit Focus Gallery. Nicole
Pangas, Eurt Young Koo Lee,
Sun-Young B,yun, Chetyl Novack.
Four new talents -- a ceramist,
photographer and two painters
— selected from the annual De-
troit Focus Exhibition Commit-
tee Slide Review. Through Feb.
16. 11 am.-5 p.m. Thursday-Sun-
day. 33 East River at Farmer,
one block east ofWoodward. (313)

. .

Siena Heights College. Sources
and Collaborations: The Creation
of he Holocaust Project. Features
study drawings, combination
photography and painting, and
related artworks in various me-
dia by contemporary artist Judy
Chicago and photographer Don-
ald Woodman. Through Feb. 16.
9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday, 6-
9 p.m. Tuesday. Klemm Gallery,
Studio Angelico, 1247 E. Sien-
na Heights Dr., Adrian. (517)
263-0731.

Paint Creek Center for the
Arts. A Good Painting Show, an

were imminent. This year, he didn't check, and the At-
tic's season of shows had to be reworked entirely when
word came Thanksgiving weekend of the building's fate.
The new space mimics the physical layout of the
Lafayette Street theatre: a "postage-stamp" square stage,
with the audience surrounding it on three sides (there
are 215 seats right now with a possible mezzanine to
come;adding- 130 more). And, Moran hopes that opening
with Twelfth Night —"our classiest show of the year" —
will encourage a lot of former patrons "to meet the Attic
Theatre again."

— Liz Stevens

Twelfth Night will debut at the new Attic Theatre
in Trapper's Alley at 8 p.m. tonight and run through
March 3. For tickets, call (810) 645-6666.

exhibition organized by the
PCCA Exhibition Committee.
Through Feb. 23 in the Main
Gallery. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-
Saturday. Henri Matisse, a slide
lecture by Michael Farrell, 11:45
a.m. Feb. 16. Reservations must
be made by Friday, Feb. 9. 407
Pine St., Rochester. (810) 651-
4110.

Janice Charach Epstein Mu-
seum/Gallery. Realism in Clay
by Gail Rosenbloom Kaplan; Let-
ters Dipped in Honey; and Juda-
ic Art of Ben Glicker . "Letters
Dipped in Honey," is an exhibit

of Jewish children's books carat-
ed by New York's Yeshiva Uni
versity. Through Feb. 29. 11
a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Wednesday;
11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday; 11 a.m.-
4 p.m. Sunday. Maple-Drake
Jewish Community Center. (810)
661-7641.

University of Michigan Mu-
seum of Art. Sol LeWitt • Five
new wall drawings. Through
Aug. 4. Dark Embraces: Images
of War, Death and the Apoca
lypse. Imagery that involves
death, including works by Dur-
er, Mallet, Goya and others.