Since opening its doors in 1981, Backstage has provided the DC theatre community with access to theatre scripts, books, make-up, costumes, and dance supplies. This company was founded due to the requirements of this niche market that most retailers were unable to fulfill. Today, some of those needs can be met through the Internet. However, the average Internet retailer lacks the knowledge and commitment to quality that is required for theatre. You need the proper books or costumes that will last through more than one event.
I am Rip Claassen, theatre teacher/director/costumer with 1000’s of hours providing classroom instruction and over 100 theatrical productions in my career. I have also worked at Backstage for the last 24 years—20 of those years as its manager.
Backstage has lost its lease, and the current owners have no interest in continuing at a new location. I am raising money to purchase the current assets, relocate to a new site, and grow the business into a larger and improved company. The book room will become that again—The Book Room—dedicated to carrying an wider section of scripts and theatre books with easier access than before. The rental and sales departments will triple in size, thereby allowing us to costume more events and provide a wider selection at Halloween. We will carry all the major dance and make-up brands at elevated stock levels. This increase will allow us to better serve our clientele with the quality and knowledgable staff we are best known for and you can’t find elsewhere.
The space I found has 12,000 square feet (current space is 2,400 sq ft). This new space will give us 750 square feet for The Book Room; 750 sq ft for office space; 1,000 sq ft for the dance department; 500 sq ft for make up; 3,000 sq ft each for costume rental and sales; leaving 3,000 sq ft for two rehearsal classrooms and a black box theatre thus providing affordable space for emerging theatre artists to rent. The new space is walking distance from Metro and has plenty of FREE PARKING! I am also looking at a 4,500 square foot space in the district and waiting to hear the cost on that one.
The black box theatre will be built using revenues and special campaigns. We are creating the first combined theatrical supply and theatre studio company on the East Coast.
I had an investor lined up, but he had damage to his own business during Hurricane Sandy, so help is now desperately needed.
Our project is to take the old Backstage to its next level thus allowing it to remain a major support structure in the local theatre scene. This expanded scope will allow us to grow and consequently remain the premiere costume theatre supply company—not just to DC but to the entire mid-Atlantic region. Our commitment to excellence and our knowledgable staff will foster the growth of theatre by supporting costumers and thespians craft with quality and expertise they can not find on the Internet, at the Party Store, or in a Halloween shop.
I have run Backstage for 20 years, keeping it afloat through the rise and fall of the super bookstores, the Internet book boom, the fly by night Halloween shops, the bad service of Internet costume venues, the slowdown of DC business after 9-11, the anthrax scare on Capitol Hill, the DC sniper, and Hurricane Sandy hitting us this Halloween—a rent increase cannot stop me. We are the last full service theatre bookstore & supply in DC area.
Please go to indiegogo to contribute to save Backstage. Or email me [email protected]
Help me save Backstage!
