When entering the third floor of Great Falls Arts Center in Auburn, echoes of high school students changing classes can almost be heard in the now deserted and lockerless hallway.
Classrooms still have blackboards on the walls, but instead of being packed with desks, they are now stuffed full of clothes — separated by gender, color coordinated and categorized by era and ethnicity.
Four large classrooms and a smaller space for archives and a sewing space are now used for Lewiston-Auburn Community Little Theatre’s ever growing costume department.
“A lot of the stuff is donated,” said box office manager Danielle Sicotte. “It surprised me that a lot of little old ladies come in with their husband’s stuff after they’ve passed. A lot of the military things are authentic. I couldn’t even image giving up my grandfather’s uniform.”
Besides the third floor, the theater uses space on the second floor for its production office and spotlight room. On either side of the first-floor stage are two rooms where lighting equipment and set building materials are kept. The basement of CLT’s wing in the former Great Falls High School building holds the theater’s green room, prop room and scenic room.
The prop room holds anything “too small to be a set piece, but too large to be an accessory,” Sicotte explained.
There are the “bar essentials” (empty beer and alcohol bottles along with shakers and glasses), foliage, bike parts, theatrical weapons and a host of other props needed to stage a production.
In the scenic room are all sorts of building materials recycled from previous sets.
The extensive collection of props and scenery started more than 20 years ago could be thinned out a bit, Sicotte admitted. But, she said, most of the props and costumes are irreplaceable. In addition, it would be hard to move everything, and finding a place large enough to house it all would be a challenge. (Auburn City Councilors voted Nov. 15 to move all 12 tenants out of the building in May and demolish it in June.)
“I can’t imagine this place not being here,” said Sicotte, who started acting at age 7. “It’s great for people like me who have a passion for theater, but will never become a professional actress. It’s also great for people who do other things during the day, but can fuel that hobby.”
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- Hats in all shapes, sizes and colors line the walls of the women’s storage area on the third floor of the Great Falls Arts Center.
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- Danielle Sicotte, Community Little Theatre’s box office manager, looks through costumes in the accessory room on the third floor of the Great Falls Arts Center in Auburn. The accessory room is one of five rooms the theater has packed full on the third floor.
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- Women’s dresses, separated by color, era, and ethnicity, take up one entire former classroom on the third floor of the Great s Falls Arts Center in Auburn.
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- As seen from the production office and spotlight room, interior auditorium walls were added to the Great Falls Performing Arts Center in 1982 by the Community Little Theatre.
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- Purses, wigs, shoes, belts, and many other accessories that could be worn for a play are stuffed into a former classroom on the third floor of the Great Falls Arts Center.
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- A storage room on stage right houses all the extra lighting equipment and sheet music stands needed to put on a production at Community Little Theatre in Auburn.
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- Natural light in the hallway of the Great Falls Arts Center gives the former high school an almost ghostly appearance.
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- The prop room, in the basement of the wing occupied by the Community Little Theatre, holds “anything too small to be a set piece, but too large to be an accessory,” according to box office manager Danielle Sicotte.
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- The majority of costumes have been donated, thus any military apparel is authentic.
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- “I love coming up here to see if I can spot something I’ve seen or worn in a production,” said Community Little Theatre’s box office manager Danielle Sicotte, who has been acting since she was 7 years old.
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- The accessory room holds many sizes and colors of footwear for upcoming and past productions of the Community Little Theatre.
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