Article by Doug Johnson
Published in Vue Weekly – April 4, 2018
After years of hustling and moving three buildings, a local theatre troupe can get their nose—wait for it—to the grindstone, hosting shows in their new home.
Grindstone Theatre, the poorly-punned troupe mentioned above, open their eponymously named venue on April 5. It’s been a long time coming for its founders.
The troupe has been around since 2011, but its founder and artistic director Byron Martin began poking around for more permanent spaces two years ago.
Last January, the troupe signed a lease for the space above Block 1912, which fell through last minute with the province’s safety codes. They raised around $20,000 to renovate the small venue on Kickstarter, prior to the setback. They’d also looked at some old movie theatres above Westmount Mall, but the setup didn’t seem central enough.
“We had to start all over again,” Martin says. “It was back to the drawing board.”
They finally made an offer on a small site off Whyte, previously an Old Hippy Wood Products (the company is still the landlord of the site).
