GREENFIELD — As the “curtain goes up” on this weekend’s Full Disclosure Festival, the “full disclosure” from the creative force behind this and other arts spectacles downtown is that it will be her last.
That’s because Linda McInerney, whose Eggtooth Productions has produced its Double Take Fringe theater festivals and Full Disclosure festivals of performance and visual arts over the past five years, has depended largely on vacant and underused spaces. Many of them, she says have become unavailable or too expensive.
“There’s been a shifting of the tides,” said McInerney, who as artistic director of Old Deerfield Productions and now Eggtooth has been staging creative theater events around the Pioneer Valley for more than two decades including “The Belle of Amherst,” “A Christmas Carol,” “Frankenstein” and the original operas “Truth” and “The Captivation of Eunice Williams.”
“With all of the abandoned or underutilized spaces,” she guessed, “I think I’ve just brought too many people to them or they’ve either been sold or are ready to be demolished, or it’s been too obvious to too many people that they’re not up to code and a blind eye cannot be turned any longer.”
McInerney said that 17 of the 23 spaces she was allowed to use over the last several years have become unavailable this year, leaving her scrambling to find suitable venues that people could walk to around the downtown.
The most visible of those is the vacant First National Bank building on Bank Row, where she’d prevailed on town officials to stage an eerie 2014 production of “Frankenstein.” But this year, town officials only granted permission for use of the vestibule for a visual and sound installation by Kate Hunter to be exhibited on a 30-foot wall.
The festivals, which she said have attracted roughly 200 to 300 people a night, have also made use in the past of The Recorder’s basement distribution center, which is now being used for storage, and the Zion Korean Church on Main Street as well as the vacant Abercrombie Building on Bank Row, both of which are no longer available.
Like the bank building, the second-floor space above Hope & Olive restaurant on Bank Row does not meet fire and safety codes, said McInerney.
“There’s been some exquisite leniency on the part of the building inspector and the fire chief to let limited numbers of people in, but there have been so many people coming through that it seems their kindness and graciousness has been pushed too far, and they just can’t do it anymore.”
According to Greenfield Fire Department Capt. John Whitney, the roof on the “huge space” of the vacant bank building is slowly decaying, and without a sprinkler system or emergency power, “we can’t let them use it anymore.”
Deputy Chief Edward Jarvis added, “It was a limited time basis when we allowed them to use it a couple of times.”
The upstairs space at Hope & Olive, accessible only by stairs, has no emergency lighting and the sprinkler system needs to be reworked because of an additional room that’s been created in what was the White Eagles Club.
Another space used for the festivals in the past, the former Carr Hardware building on Wells Street, has a severe mold problem, said Whitney.
Maggie Zaccara, co-owner of Hope & Olive, said she was told after the Fire Department’s last inspection of the space that it couldn’t be used anymore for public events.
“It was fun to have something happening in the building,” she said. “Whenever there are any of those festivals, or anything big in town, that’s been good for us.”
McInerney said she was first inspired by the Brick and Mortar International Video Art Festival in vacant Greenfield spaces as a way to breathe new life into the community’s struggling economy.
“People started to say, ‘Yes,’ and it worked. Even people who knew it was not up to code would look away, and we had a full five years of doing that.”
Several vacant storefront spaces formerly used for venues, like the former Pushkin Gallery, have been rented and are no longer available, McInerney said.
In other cases, she said, rents have gone up. Second Congregational Church, she said, told her she would be charged three times what she had last year because the space was in demand.
“I knew there would be a shelf life to this, but I didn’t know it would hit all at once,” McInerney said. “I didn’t know I’d make phone calls for this festival, ‘Can we use this space again?’ ‘No. No. No. No. Alright, for $2,000.’ It just happened all of a sudden.”
McInerney said that $2,000 rent, for the Arts Block, is “four times more than I’ve ever paid for any space in Franklin County,” although the rent charged by former owner Ed Wierzbowski had doubled to $1,000 when she went to use it for the Double Take Festival last fall.
“I love it, and we have a great time, but he needs to make his money,” she said of the renovated downtown arts venue, where she plans to use space on three floors for two days.
“We’re doing everything we can to make the Arts Block sustainable, owner Steven Goldsher said. Whether it’s through creative sponsorship or direct ticket sales, there has to be some understanding of what it takes to run a facility like this.”
McInerney said, “We live in this incredibly rich community, filled with creators and performers of all different kinds, and what’s the way to express that? We thought we’d found a way, but we’ve sort of grown out of that. So what’s next? The demand is there, the culture is there, but how do we share it with people? There’s an incredibly supportive downtown atmosphere. Greenfield has been so welcoming and ready.”
Although using outdoors spaces like the Greenfield Energy Park is a possibility, she said, it would be “tricky” because of weather uncertainties and her commitment to keeping the events affordable.
“I would have to do it very carefully so I don’t lose my shirt.” McInerney said, “Something happens in these underserved, ‘rurban’ communities that had a heyday in the Industrial Revolution, that are coming of age again through the creative economy. Artists and creatives are choosing places to be because of their creative energy, as opposed to because of a job.”
Yet she pointed to Northampton, where increased rents have pushed artists and performers out to seek cheaper housing and studio space in communities like Greenfield and Easthampton, and she said she’s afraid of Greenfield pricing out its fledgling cultural rebirth.
“What I’m really hoping, in my deepest heart, is that the town will pay attention to the downtown and make sure the same thing doesn’t happen. Inexpensive residential space in the downtown is key. Inexpensive artist’s studio space in downtown is key.”
“Maybe it’s that these places are growing into their own thing,” McInerney conjectured. “Maybe that’s the renaissance: the pioneers are actually contributing, as opposed to me, ‘Can I squat?’ That would be really good.”
Jordi Herold, the Northampton developer and Iron Horse founder who helped develop the southeast corner of downtown’s main intersection, said, “any town should have places where people can congregate for performance. Those gathering places feed everything else,” including restaurants and retail shops. “I see those things as important.”
John Lunt, an assistant to the mayor for special projects, said, “We’re aware of downtown being less and less available” for cultural spectacles like Double Take, Full Disclosure, and what is available is more and more expensive.”
And while McInerney decried the absence of a dedicated performance space in town — a point that Arts Block owner Goldsher disputes — Lunt said the town is working with public and private entities to find a 150- to 250-seat “black-box space” close to downtown.
“That’s something that’s needed in town,” Lunt agreed. “There are a number of sites around town that are potentially good locations for performance — a flexible space” that can also be used for meetings and private receptions.”
Meanwhile, McInerney said she will turn her energies to the Shea Theater in Turners Falls as she continues to try to find ways “to create opportunities for artists, so their work can be seen, and they can try things out in a non-dangerous way.”
A December festival there, modeled after the fringe theater festival, is planned as a two-hour “new vaudeville holiday spectacular” of performances by different presenters, all under the theme of “grace.”
After five years of trying to produce festivals in different Greenfield venues, she said, “That takes the idea and shifts it in a way that works, for now.”
On the Web: www.eggtooth.org/current