Magenta Theater’s long, narrow home at 606 Main St. is dearly beloved and deeply problematic.
“I love this place. I will miss 606 a lot,” said Jaynie Roberts, the founding director of Magenta Theater, which has been entertaining audiences here — while struggling to squeeze them all in — since 2009.
There are 101 tight seats in the low, tunnel-like auditorium, which is laid out in oddball fashion: the stage isn’t at one end, facing many rows of seats, but rather along one side wall, facing a few long, shallow rows of seats along the other side.
The slim space has no backstage. Actors exiting stage right at intermission must hurry downstairs, through the basement and then upstairs again to reach lobby restrooms before the audience does; that means the director is usually tasked with a couple minutes of audience patter, giving the harried thespians a head start to the head.