On Thursday, the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre opened its first production since its home theater, The Warwick, caught fire in February 2024. “Mother’s Daughter” will run through Sept. 28.
The Warwick has been home to the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre for more than a decade. The company was preparing to mount the play “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” when a multi-alarm fire broke out in the early hours of the morning, damaging three floors all the way to the roof.
“It looked kind of like a cross between nuclear winter and Armageddon,” Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre artistic director Karen Paisley told KCUR’s Up To Date.
That show still went on — just not at the Warwick.
In the months following, construction crews rebuilt the bare bones of the theater. But everything else — what wasn’t subject to city codes — Paisley and a group of volunteers took upon themselves to restore.
“For about 36 hours, we had them. And then the rest of it was us,” Paisley said.
They completed ceiling repairs and built new restrooms. They installed new equipment and sifted through hundreds of costumes, salvaging what they could. They cleaned ash from every corner of the building.
Now, it’s finally showtime.
- Karen Paisley, Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre
