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Karla Boos concentrates on having her homeless theater company in the right place at the right time
Sunday, August 15, 1999 By John Hayes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Isn't it wonderful?" she asks, her eyes beaming with excitement. "Look at these beams and this floor and these windows."
Anyone else might see corroded steel beams poking through the unswept hardwood floor of an abandoned factory, dirty windows cracked open to the setting sun and a few hanging lights casting shapeless shadows.
But Karla Boos sees a magnificent theater space worthy of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." The support beams, in her eyes, become pillars of corporate power; the high ceiling and exceptional length of the room hint at an expansive trading climate where the privileged whisper deals while the rest clamor to be noticed.
Boos sees in the empty space of the Strip District's former Kerotest Building another connection between her homeless Quantum Theatre and the Pittsburgh community in which it lives. Quantum is homeless by design, preferring in recent years to discover unconventional sites with a character that contributes to the stories being told.
Producer Boos has staged works in a museum's cramped stonewalled basement and a wall-less deconstructed office floor. She chose a 19th-century bank-turned-remodeled theater only because the remodeling of the room made a statement about the play.
But the attention given to Quantum's quirky locations sometimes overshadows the quality of its adventurous work. Last year, the Post-Gazette rated Quantum shows first and third of the year's 10 best stage performances (for "Knives in Hens," staged in the basement of the Mattress Factory, and "Hapwood," staged in offices of the Ewart Building, Downtown, respectively).
Other local publications have offered similar laurels, and The New York Times recently complimented the company's liveliness.
If necessity is really the mother of invention, Boos' need for a creative outlet with links to the community forced her to invent Quantum Theatre. Born in West Virginia, she studied in Pittsburgh before heading west to the California Institute of the Arts, where she studied acting in an environment of interdisciplinary collaboration.
After graduation, she hoped to start a professional theater company with intimate links to its host community, a venture she couldn't foresee happening in cosmopolitan Los Angeles. She decided on Pittsburgh, seeing often-overlooked growth opportunities in the city's struggle to reinvent itself.
"I had been in Pittsburgh before, so I knew a little about it," says Boos. "There was this portrait in my mind of a friendly, mid-sized city with approachable funding entities, and lo and behold, that's exactly what Pittsburgh is."
Boos returned to Pittsburgh in 1989, the same year that local arts endowments were getting interested in multicultural collaboration. Her idea for a community-based professional theater company that incorporated various disciplines was quickly funded.
Although her training had been in pure artistic expression, Boos found she had a knack for business. She gave Quantum a corporate entity, established a board of directors and began staging shows.
Bar rooms and basements became her venues of opportunity. Quantum, with Boos at the helm and a loose company, resided for four years at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts.
"Before that, I was just looking for a venue to do a show. I didn't really see the place as a creative aspect for the piece of work," says Boos. "Suddenly, I started looking at the venue as a contributing part of the project."
Boos found a small, boxy space at Chatham College where she could produce "Polygraph" in 1996. On the surface, the space was totally inadequate, but director Rodger Henderson, a colleague from her CalArt days, had a brainstorm.
"That play is a mystery about the revelation of the deep layers of these characters," she says. "Rodger's idea was to strip away the boundaries between the performers and the audience, just like these characters were stripping away layers so we could get to the root of the story. The core of this play would be manifested in what we would do with this physical space."
Henderson has since become a frequent Quantum collaborator, returning to direct "Hapgood" in the Ewart Building last year and "Kill the Old, Torture Their Young" at the Library Center this June.
Boos fund-raising skills eventually landed her a job as director of development at City Theatre. Now 37, she lives with her 8-year-old daughter in Squirrel Hill.
Boos' idea of community interaction works both ways. Her last production, "Kill, Torture," dealt with people surviving in a city in decline; "The Merchant of Venice" follows the lines of corporate power in a racially divided town. As Quantum reaches out to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is reaching back. Movers and shakers -- including the Cultural Trust's Carol Brown, Councilman Bob O'Connor and state Rep. Dan Frankel -- sent letters to property owners urging them to let Quantum use their space.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority, owner of the former Kerotest factory, donated the space free of charge. Sargent Electric Co., a Strip District neighbor, installed some $10,000 worth of lighting equipment, gratis. RedZone Robotics, the high-tech industry next door, has chipped in parking space for the cast and other conveniences.
Speaking of conveniences, the Kerotest space started with none. With the electrical problem solved, Boos borrowed and rented about 100 seats, physically hoisted stage platforms into position and set up a restroom of portable toilets.
"I think we have a very adventurous audience," she says, grinning. "There's a pain factor to coming to our shows that I think they understand. Walking into a place like this breaks a barrier that is inherently there when you walk into any real theater space. Your decision to come here makes you a part of the creative experience. You become a part of the piece, inside of it, in this space."
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