Search over, REP is ready for its big move

Raleigh Ensemble Players anticipates big changes when it moves into its new Fayetteville Street space in the spring. But fans of the veteran company will be relieved to hear there are some things it intends to keep the same.

Intimacy and invention are the two biggies. The 26-year-old company has made its mark with intense productions played close to the audience, from the Holocaust drama "Bent" to "Columbinus," the docudrama about the Columbine High School shootings.

The company has struggled with the limitations of the second-floor gallery at Artspace, its usual performing space. But those constraints have led to some of the most imaginative and visceral set designs Triangle theater has produced in the last decade.

The new space, on the first floor at 213 Fayetteville St., will also be a black box with flexible seating, managing director Gary Williams says. And it will have a smaller capacity -- 60 to 70, compared with Artspace's 75 to 80 -- making for even greater intimacy between actor and audience.

The company scoured the city for four years, considering more than a dozen buildings, Williams says. The Fayetteville Street building dates back to the late 1800s. It housed the Vogue clothing store for decades and was more recently a Hallmark store. It still has tin ceiling panels and nickel floor tiles, Williams says.

"This one just feels right," he says of the building, for which REP signed a five-year lease with an option to renew. "It's a good size for us. It's a great next step for the company."

REP's offices and rehearsal and teaching space will be on the second floor, which the company will share with its landlord, Jean Pauwels. a stone importer from France.

The theater will lose its proximity to City Market, where theatergoers often headed for post-show socializing. But REP's new building will have a beer and wine lounge in its excavated basement.

"We're kind of looking at it as like a downtown New York vibe," Williams says. "A small theater, intimate, with great stuff going on."

The dedicated space will also give REP the ability to add more midweek performances when shows are hot sellers, to lend the space to outside groups and to book runs of four weeks or longer, a rarity in Triangle theater.

Construction is scheduled to begin after a city inspection early next month, Williams says. The cost: $250,000, which REP intends to raise with donations.

You can see REP's future home at an open house today from 4 to 7 p.m.

A hand for the puppet man

Paperhand Puppet Intervention is best known for its vast menagerie of puppets. But its original shows are just as impressive for their live music, thanks in large part to the artistry of Chapel Hill drummer Kevin Brock.

The troupe lost its creative heartbeat this month, when Brock died in his sleep at age 37. Fans and friends have been sharing homages to Brock online at vimeo.com/2203941, where filmmaker Mark Barroso posted a 13-minute homage.

Barroso had amassed plenty of Brock footage while shooting a Paperhand documentary, and this tribute paints a poignant portrait of the gifted musician and devoted Paperhand collaborator.

Brock was quite the filmmaker's muse. Enrique Vega also has a Brock documentary, which he'll show at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Carrboro's Century Center.

"I believe our community, all those who were touched deeply by Kevin's life and death, now stand in the face of one of the greatest opportunities for spiritual growth in our lives thus far," Paperhand co-founder Donovan Zimmerman wrote in an e-mail tribute to Brock this week.