We learned recently that Freehold has been awarded a significant facilities grant from 4Culture. We spoke with longtime Facilities Coordinator Caleb Pierce about his role at Freehold and how the planned upgrades might impact the experience of students, faculty, renters, and all who visit our studio.
So Caleb, outside of Robin [Freehold co-founder and Artistic Partner Robin Lynn Smith] you’re the longest-tenured staff person here. When did you start?
It’s alarming, yeah. I started in 2017, when Freehold just moved into this space. I came into a dark basement full of piled up cardboard boxes full of items and books. I think we moved in in the summer of 2017 and that’s when I applied for my job. And it took about two months to get back to me, because they were in the middle of the move.
Basically I came to a place that had just been unloaded. I got a phone call from Zoe [then Managing Director Zoe Cauley], who was like “Hey, why don’t you come down here about that job?” There was a lot of stuff from the old space that had been kind of taken apart, dismantled, demolished. I encountered a bunch of history from different periods that had accumulated.
How has this space changed since then?
The history has all melted together in my brain, like an old candy bar in a hot car. But sometime in 2018 or 2019 there was a sewer pipe burst beneath the street in Chinatown/International District, and a good chunk of that flooded into our space. So we had to close down and get rid of, you know, basically all this stuff in the staff office, in the faculty office, the bathrooms. We had to get rid of everything that was below waist level, and we had to cut out all of the drywall, and we had these giant dehydrators running in here for a couple weeks.
I would be here in the middle of the night, carting stuff around on the dolly, taking it into the Black Box. It was like a staging ground for the rescued items. So we had to do a lot of cleaning, a lot of disinfecting. And it was an ordeal. We moved classes off site. We weren’t sure if we would make it through.
I imagine that there are big plans for this new grant! What excites you the most?
Well, one thing, as I look at this studio floor here [in Studio 2], and I see the chipped paint—that’s a chronic issue. So one of the things I’m really excited about is getting a layer of MDF sealed with Rosco Tough Prime. That’s really good studio floor paint. We’ve had a lot of success with that in the Black Box, and think it’ll make this whole space feel better, be a lot easier to play on. And you know, we do a lot of barefoot stuff, we like to roll around on the ground, so that’s something I’m really excited about. We’re also trying to get seating set up in the Black Box, so we can actually be a bit more like a working theatre space with tiered seating. That’ll make it feel a lot better for the audience, and also it’ll give us a lot more structure to set up an actual stage and performance space around, and make this feel like a performing arts theatre.
And along with that, we’re trying to get some electrical upgrades, so we can have a better lighting system. We’ve got some lights now. I think it was the summer of 2019, when there was a project to kind of build out our Black Box. That’s when we put down the new floors, we put up like 500 pounds worth of steel beams, and put up the new lighting grid. So part of this is a continuation of that.
One of the things we’re really excited about is renovating our accessibility entrance [located on Weller St]. [One thing we’re doing is] putting in lighting for security, so at night it’s not like a dark corner. Sometimes there’s trash that accumulates there. We don’t want it to be a mess. And so I think having a light there will, one, hopefully make it less of a mess, and two, make it feel safer for students and faculty who use that entrance. We’re hoping to set up an unlocking system, where a student can come to the door and hit a button and say, “Hey, faculty, I’m here. Can you let me in?” And then we can maybe look at a camera or something and hit a button and then unlock the door. So if a student has accessibility needs, they won’t have to wait out there. So that’s really exciting, just making our place a lot more accessible and just friendlier to students!
We’re also talking about doing things to make the back hallway just feel cleaner. This is an old building, so there are some moisture leakage issues that we are constantly battling. We’ve had some sound issues. You can probably hear the HVAC right now [editor’s note: I could]. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback about that. Right now, we don’t know exactly what we’re going to do, but if we can address that and make it even 50% quieter, it’s gonna make the space a lot more usable.
What are your typical duties here at Freehold. What does a facilities person do?
There’s quite a range, I’ll just say that.
We’re in a basement space under a restaurant in an old building in the International District. We have some leak issues. Some of those are within my power to solve or cope with, and doing what I can in that regard is a part of my job. And then trying to work with the owner of the building, trying to work with the restaurant above our place.
There’s a lot of stuff that’s just like, touching up paint, studio furniture, upkeep. I know it’s not perfect. So if any of you out there have feedback that “Okay, this really needs to happen,” I always welcome that, because I guess I’m trying to juggle the various things I can.
There’s work I do for Engaged Theatre, when we do the prison tour [at Monroe Correctional Complex and Washington Corrections Center for Women]. We went to Harborview, to the in-patient psych ward there. So there’s a lot of stuff around that: load in, load out, making sure we have the equipment we need (and if we don’t have it, figuring out how to have it), testing stuff, testing audio equipment, all of that. And I guess another part of that is helping coordinate volunteers, because the load in/load out for the Engaged Theatre tour requires a lot of hands. So trying to help make sure that happens.
I also do tech [for performances at Freehold]. So for example, with [the] Rehearsal & Performance [class, taught by David Hsieh] I help put together the tech, run the tech, and work with David.
My job title is Facilities Coordinator. There’s a lot that isn’t coordinating, but I do some actual coordinating. I do tech for renters when they want it; interfacing with renters. Asking: “Hey, what do you want? This is what we’ve got. This is what we can offer. Okay, this is what we’re not sure about, but I’ll show up here if you’re available to meet, and we’ll figure something out, and we’ll use our big brains and creativity and make it happen.” There’s a lot of that, and hopefully with the grants and renovation, there’s less on the fly, let me see what I’ve got in my back pocket.
It seems like a lot of your job is MacGyvering stuff?
Indeed, indeed, which is fun, but also has limitations. I’ve gotten to learn a lot, so I appreciate that.
As we wrap up, what are your long-term hopes for Freehold?
Well, I mean, in my mind, it always comes down to the foundational things that keep the lights on, because I know it’s hard to keep the doors open, especially in Seattle, with the rent and everything. So I just hope for whatever helps us be more sustainable. That is my number one hope.
