The Lab Theater, located on North First Street in the North Loop
neighborhood of Minneapolis’ warehouse district, was built for the
Guthrie and opened in 1988 as the Guthrie Laboratory Theater.
Quickly becoming known as “The Lab”, this space was envisioned by
Garland Wright (the Guthrie’s artistic director) as a home for
experimental work, a place to try out new ideas. With the opening
of the Guthrie’s spectacular new home on the river in 2006,
The Lab was no longer needed.
The Lab Theater is an artistically-inspiring space. It offers a full
6,000 square feet of unobstructed space with 25-foot ceilings
and dynamic limestone and brick walls, remnants of the original
19th century building. Thanks to the Guthrie, the entire floor is a
sprung wood construction, the dressing rooms are designed for
comfort, and the grid for lighting and sound equipment spans the
entire space (affording almost infinite configuration possibilities).
Mary Kelley Leer, the new artistic director of The Lab, is re-outfitting the space with lighting and sound equipment. Leer
operated an adventurous performing arts cabaret, Ruby’s, in
an old warehouse space in the same North Loop neighborhood
well before the neighborhood had a name. She shares Garland
Wright’s original dreams for the space, and is eager to begin again.
Leer originally looked at The Lab when she was looking for a larger
home for Ruby’s Cabaret. It was a big hole in the ground left
standing when the building above had been destroyed by a fire in
the 1940’s. The hole was covered with a tin roof and left standing
until her spouse, Chuck Leer, whose passion for the re-use of old
buildings, took her to see it. Though they both found it magical and
full of possibilities, it was beyond what Ruby’s could afford to build. Now, almost 20 years later, the space is back in her hands, and
Mary Leer feels as if she has been given a gift.
In addition to its use as a performance space, The Lab is
available for private functions, video and photo shoots, and endless
other possibilities. |
