Sometimes, the biggest contribution a person can make to a good cause isn’t money but effort, time and goodwill.
Earlier this year, stage lighting technicians from Portland’5 Centers for the Arts brightened – literally – the theater at Roosevelt High School in Portland. The North Portland school – one of the city’s most racially diverse, where three-quarters of students receive free or reduced lunch – has an emerging theater program with immensely talented students. But its stage has long-needed several crucial technical repairs. Only eight lights in the front of the house, for example, were working.
What was holding up those repairs? In a word: Funding.
But thanks to connections to Portland’5 – the umbrella name for the regional venue management organization that includes Keller Auditorium, Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and the Newmark, Dolores Winningstad, and Brunish Theatres located inside Antoinette Hatfield Hall – Roosevelt was able to get some of those repairs done.
Over two days, a group of Portland’5 employees improved the general lighting for the theater’s seating area and corrected the stage’s fire curtain operation. The beauty of it was that it didn’t cost either organization any money.
"This was done all for free," says Jason Blackwell, Portland’5’s director of operations. "We don’t have any money to give."
The project to help Roosevelt began when Portland’5 executive director Robyn Williams met with Roosevelt’s theater instructor, Jo Lane, and toured the school’s facilities. It was during this visit that Williams saw that Roosevelt’s theatrical facilities needed repair. But the school didn’t have money to spend on them.
That’s when Williams dispatched Blackwell – along with Tom Bugas, Portland’5’s assistant director of operations, and Justin Dunlap, the head electrician stagehand from the Schnitzer – to visit Roosevelt and make assessments based on their limited time and resources. Dunlap is also one of five technicians at Portland’5 to have completed the rigorous Entertainment Technician Certification Program, regarded as the industry’s blue ribbon approval rating.
"We identified two areas that were safety issues of primary importance: general lighting for the seating area and proper operation of the fire curtain," Bugas says.
The three returned about a month later, in May, with about 40 unused light bulbs from Portland’5.
"They were too deep for Portland’5 to use," says Blackwell. The bulbs were also a lower wattage than the previous bulbs and rated for a longer lifespan to decrease the likelihood for burnouts anytime soon. The three also donated some rope to repair the fire curtain.
Blackwell is gratified that Portland’5 could do something to help Roosevelt. There’s still much left to do, repairs for another day.
"We put in a couple of days of good work, but the results are far-reaching," Blackwell says.