Homewood Theatre enjoying new home

There’s only one place in the area where you can watch a live theater production, buy a pair of khakis and eat from a variety of fast food and fine dining restaurants without having to move your car.

That’s all thanks to Homewood Theatre moving last summer into Brookwood Village in the former Z Gallerie space.

Executive director Kyle Bass said he doesn’t know of any other theaters that are inside an enclosed mall.

“We think it’s kind of unique,” he said. “You could put together a date: come here, eat dinner, see a show and never have to move your car.”

The theater company had been performing at The Dance Foundation since its inception a few years ago. But with its move to Brookwood Village, Bass said the group has a lot more flexibility with sets and can hold more performances each season.

Marietta Lunceford, who has been with Homewood Theatre since the beginning, said they used to take apart the set every night and move it out of the way so that The Dance Foundation could use the space during the day. She remembered how difficult it was for their first-ever production, “Barefoot in the Park.”

“We had to have a full apartment with a skylight, a kitchen, front door, a radiator, and we had to be able to completely take it apart and move it out of the way every night,” she said. “So when I told my husband how I thought we could build it and what I wanted to do, he gave me that look, like, ‘No this is not going to work.’”

Rehearsals were sometimes in the loft over Bass’ garage before they had a permanent space. The ceiling was an A-frame, and Lunceford said they used to bump their heads during rehearsals.

“Now we’re somewhere that, from start to finish, we can be in the theater,” she said. “We can build our set when we get ready, we can rehearse our set. It’s life-changing to be able to do that.”

Homewood Theatre celebrated its first performance in the new space Aug. 22 with a cabaret show called “Bill Bugg and Friends: Songs from the Great American Songbook.” Each actor walked on stage one at a time throughout the first song, and Lunceford remembers pulling the curtain back for each one as they came out. “You could see the excitement on their face,” she said.

“You could feel the excitement coming from the audience. It was so fun for me to be able to pull that curtain for each of them and watch them walk out on stage.”

The company put on a show in October called “Girls’ Weekend,” which was a “door-slamming farce” set in a cabin in Minnesota. It then performed “Inspecting Carol” right before Christmas, which was about a company putting on “A Christmas Carol” and everything going wrong. It also did a Valentine’s comedy called “Isn’t It Romantic” in late February.

“We’re not quite selling them out, but we’ve been very encouraged by the increase in audience,” Bass said. “Our season ticket holders have more than doubled since we moved over here.”

Homewood Theatre will have two more productions before taking a break for the summer. “Catch Me If You Can,” a murder-mystery-comedy, will have four shows each weekend March 26 to April 5. The group will close the spring with the classic Broadway musical “I Do! I Do!” on weekends from April 30 to May 10.

Homewood Theatre is located inside Brookwood Village across from Books-A-Million at 780 Brookwood Village. For more information, visit homewoodtheatre.com.