Fire Harms Lake City Playhouse But Director Wendy Reznicsek Says ‘The Show Must Go On’

Fire flared in the basement of the Lake City Playhouse late Sunday morning, charring several rooms and sending acrid smoke billowing through the theater upstairs.

“Oh man, I’ll tell you, it makes me sick,” said Keith Knight, a theater volunteer who showed up to hang Christmas lights.

Instead, he found five fire engines parked outside.

Smoke poured from the windows and doors of the modest single-story theater, still topped by a steeple from its previous life as a Mormon church.

The fire - possibly caused by a faulty space heater - came days before the theater’s next show, the musical “Make a Joyful Noise.”

Theater officials said Sunday night they’re looking for another venue, and hope to raise the curtain Friday, as planned.

“The show must go on,” said director Wendy Reznicsek.

A non-profit theater group bought the former church at 1320 E. Garden Ave. 30 years ago and converted it into a 205-seat playhouse. The theater puts on 10 plays and musicals a year.

General Manager Ron Shapiro said he was designing a lighting layout on the computer in the ground-floor theater office around 10:40 a.m. Sunday when he smelled smoke. He looked down and saw smoke curling under the office door.

Shapiro called the fire department and began hauling valuables - the computer, telephone, snapshots of an owl he saw in Hayden - to his car. The building is insured, he said.

Fifteen firefighters battled the blaze as smoke poured from the building.

“It was hard to get to and (there was) considerable heat,” said firefighter Marty Knapp.

Fire officials couldn’t immediately estimate the cost of the damage.

“It’s significant,” Knapp said. “There’s considerable fire damage in the four rooms in the basement, and some smoke damage throughout the building.”

The cause of the blaze was unclear. State and city fire investigators expected to be on the scene until late Sunday night.

Shapiro thought the fire might have been caused by an electric space heater in the basement. But he said it was far away from anything flammable.

Knapp said electrical wiring in the basement was damaged, but investigators weren’t sure if that was a cause or result of the blaze.

, DataTimes