Shipyard beams salvaged for Shakespeare stage set
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CHELSEA, Mass. -- Large Douglas fir timbers from a World War II-era building at the Hingham Shipyard have been salvaged by Longleaf Lumber, an antique and reclaimed wood lumber mill based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

These beams, donated by the company, are currently being assembled by owner Marc Poirier into an immense cribwork stage set. Eastern Salt Co. is allowing one of their impressive salt piles in Chelsea, Massachusetts, to serve as a backdrop for the set and will be filling the wooden cribs with salt upon their completion. The set will be used for the summer production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, produced by the Apollinaire Theatre Company.

Originally felled in West Coast forests, these Douglas fir timbers were shipped many miles to the East Coast where they were used to construct the frame of a large building at the Hingham Shipyard. When this building was recently razed to make way for a residential development, the fir beams were carefully salvaged, shipped to Longleaf Lumber’s mill in Berwick, Maine, and stacked on-site awaiting their next installation.

Eastern Salt Company, a Lowell, Massachusetts, manufacturer of road salt, has stored towering piles of salt in Chelsea for years. It was a creative project that brought the reclaimed Hingham beams down from Maine to Chelsea’s PORT Park: an outdoor theatrical set utilizing the timbers as a major component. The Apollinaire Theatre Company in Chelsea, headed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques, has produced an outdoor summer production for the past 14 years. PORT Park is the venue for this year’s production, William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. See http://www.longleaflumber.com.

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Karl Forth

Karl D. Forth is online editor for CCI Media. He also writes news and feature stories in FDMC Magazine, in addition to newsletters and custom publishing projects. He is also involved in event organization, and compiles the annual FDM 300 list of industry leaders. He can be reached at [email protected].