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 Green Thumb Theatre artistic director Patrick McDonald speaks to reporters outside Sir Guy Carleton Elementary in Vancouver Tuesday. (PHOTO SUBMITTED) |
A local school with more than 100 years of history is slated to undergo renovations that will install a youth-themed theatre group in the property’s burned-out schoolhouse.
Green Thumb Theatre, a group that tours B.C. school districts annually, will lease and renovate two of three buildings at Sir Guy Carleton Elementary School in Collingwood. The schoolhouse with the rehearsal halls, however, had been gutted by fire in March 2008 and had faced the possibility of demolition. Now, it requires significant repairs.
The City of Vancouver has plans to approve a $150,000 grant while the rest of the $1.2 million bill will likely need to come from donations.
“We’d like to secure $80,000 to $100,000 so that before anything gets moved we can get a new roof on this, so the neighbourhood can say the project has begun,” said Patrick McDonald, the theatre’s artistic director.
“It brings tears to my eyes,” said school principal Pat Munton, recalling the devastation of the fire and the subsequent lack of funding to restore the building.
Heritage Vancouver president Donald Luxton also praised the announcement, calling it a day heritage advocates “live for.”
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“This building goes back to our earliest history … when there were horses going down Kingsway,” he said.
The theatre group expects to move into the buildings by fall next year.