Fire guts 'Lost Colony' shop

Hundreds of costumes go up in flames, but show will go on

MANTEO -- Sorrow mixed with relief as staff from the outdoor drama "The Lost Colony" gathered Tuesday to figure out what was destroyed -- and what was fortuitously saved -- when a fire ripped through the historic Waterside Theatre early Tuesday.

The blaze was reported at 12:35 a.m. by a resident. It gutted one of the production's most valuable resources, the costume shop containing 70 years of new and vintage costumes, fabrics, designs and memorabilia. Two equipment sheds were also destroyed.

But the amphitheater and sets were spared, production designer William Ivey Long said in a phone interview Tuesday morning. And some of the most valuable costumes were at other sites.

The cause of the fire has not been determined, but Long said it appeared to have started in the maintenance shed.

"I'm still in the stunned stage," said Long, a Broadway designer and five-time Tony Award-winner who has worked with the drama for almost 40 years. He heard about the fire at 5 a.m. and spent the next four hours making lists of potential losses.

Producer Carl V. Curnutte III arrived at the theater as the fire was blazing. Hours later, he choked up as he talked about it. He estimated the costume losses alone at between $2.5 million and $3 million -- which the minimal insurance on the building's contents won't cover.

"I feel like I lost part of me," said Curnutte, who began with the show in 1988 and worked with Long in the costume shop.

A history buff, Long bemoaned the loss of the vintage Native American costumes, which showed how people's images of Native Americans have changed over the decades. But he was thankful fate saved other items.

A few treasures spared

A $15,000 bejeweled gown worn by the drama's Queen Elizabeth had just been delivered Aug. 30 to Wilmington's Cameron Art Museum for its retrospective of Long's work. In addition, some of the oldest costumes are at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh for its forthcoming "Lost Colony" exhibit. Several more are on display near the theater. And still dozens more courtier costumes were at a dry cleaner.

Still, the saved items represent a fraction of the nearly 800 costumes used in the annual production, which Long anticipates will take at least a year to replace.

"The Lost Colony" is the nation's longest running symphonic outdoor drama. It tells the tale of the first English settlement in the New World, which preceded its Plymouth Rock counterparts by decades but mysteriously disappeared. The production celebrated its 70th anniversary this summer.

This is the second catastrophic fire to hit "The Lost Colony." In 1947, two-thirds of the amphitheater and most its sets and props were destroyed, but costume designer Irene Rains and others threw the costumes in the harbor to protect them. On Sept. 11, 1960, Hurricane Donna badly damaged the theater.

Former "Lost Colony" producer Scott Parker said he was relieved to hear that some of the oldest costumes made by Rains and by his aunt, Ora Mae Davis, the show's first costumer, were spared, along with stacks of design "bibles" with illustrations and photos spanning decades.

"I'm feeling better by the hour," Parker said. "I was some sick earlier this morning."

Parker spent childhood summers at the "Lost Colony," where his father was general manager. He returned as producer in the late 1980s and retired this summer as director of the Institute of Outdoor Drama at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Parker said the damage could have been far worse had firefighters not acted quickly.

"If the fire had spread to the men's dressing room," he said, "there would have been no stopping it."

The National Park Service, which owns the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site where the Waterside Theatre is located, has committed to help rebuild the costume shop, Curnutte said.

How to help

Manteo residents and businesses, as well as fans and alumni across the nation, have pledged to help, said Curnutte, who will post donation information on the production's Web site at www.thelostcolony.org.

"It took basically 70 years to build up that costume collection," he said. "We're going to do it, but the next few months are going to be trying times for us."