Mean Girls-January 9th performance

On Sunday night, the normally deserted corner of Greenkill Avenue and Sterling Street was the site of a major parking jam. The 75-car lot adjoining the factory building at 5 Sterling Street was full, and cars jostled for position on Sterling. The event was Castaway Players’ performance of Mean Girls, Sean Matthew Whiteford’s workshop production of a musical about the new girl at school. Inside, on a stage at one end of a large loft space furnished with 130 chairs, dozens of talented performers, including Whiteford as an over-the-top gay student, belted out songs with such zest they seemed destined for Broadway (the one in Manhattan, that is). It was produced by Stella May Productions, a new company founded by Lou Spina (former tenant at the Seven21 Media Center) and Stephen Tenner. The two men recently transformed the first-floor loft into their two-stage performance space (one a smaller venue envisioned as a café-style space).

The show was an upbeat introduction to one of the latest redevelopment efforts in Kingston, the remaking of a former brush factory into the Kingston Media Factory. The 48,000-square-foot structure, one of a triad of industrial buildings owned by Mike Piazza—the others are the Shirt Factory and a former pajama factory, located a block away on Greenkill—currently has 12 tenants: besides Stella May, which also occupies an office on the third floor, they include Hutchings Photography, which produces children’s books and photographic illustrations for textbooks; Angel Textiles, a textile design broker; Duet Woodworking; Blackcreek Mercantile and Trading, a company that makes wood-turned bowls; Medrex, a record storage facility; Kaas Poort, a Dutch musician, who lives with his wife on Fair Street; a sculptor; a Chronogram employee; and an insurance-related management company.

Several of these companies, including Hutchings Photography and Angel Textiles, moved to Kingston from metropolitan New York within recent months. Though the neighborhood is still a bit rough—located across from the railroad tracks, 5 Sterling Street is rich with the poetic evocations of the industrial past–the building has fabulous proportions and space. The top floor is lined with skylights and has a unique mezzanine, which Piazza has divided into seven units. Another attractive feature is the community vibe within the building. It has a synergistic aspect. For example, Jacob Hutchings, son of Amy and Richard, who own Hutchings Photography, does the head shots for Stella May Productions, charging half of what he’d charge in the city.

While Piazza gets a lot of calls from the city, word of mouth accounts for most of his new tenants. He’s currently in discussions with a sound business for the Media Factory as well as an art supply retailer for the Shirt Factory (which is currently 75 percent occupied). He said he works closely with his tenants in order to come up with a plan that will help them flourish. “With start-up companies and entrepreneurs, you need to develop a relationship,” he said.

Amy Hutchings said she and her husband and son moved their business to the Media Factory from New Rochelle, where they’ve maintained a studio for 25 years, a month ago. They live in Rhinebeck and moved upstate because they wanted to be closer to home. The Hutchings’ photographs were featured in Spina’s Art on the Line show last fall.

“Kingston seems like a great opportunity for us,” she said, noting that the company has  already begun using local school children as models for a high school physics text book being shot for McGraw-Hill. (In New Rochelle, the company photographed approximately 5,000 kids, who were paid a modest fee.) “This is much more affordable for our clients who aren’t commercial,” she said. “Our rent is less, and the resources are so exciting. Mike is a real visionary and a real supporter of the arts.”

Hutchings said she’s been inspired by her new environs to work on a proposal for books on a beekeeper and a dairy farm. She’s also close by her other two sons, whose company, BCDF Pictures, is based in Kerhonkson.  (A recent project was the film Art of Love, which was written by one son; the other wrote the music.)

Will Smith at the Stella May Theatre

Meanwhile, Spina, who moved in three months ago, has been working hard on fixing up the performance space. On the roster for January 21 is the Will Smith Trio, the first of what Spina hopes are many jazz gigs. On January 22 Stella May Productions will be coproducing Knockout, a play about how boxing manager Cus D’Amata fought the mob by Tenner, who is a Catskill-based playwright. Later in the year Stella May Productions will host the Phoenicia Festival of the Voice, bringing opera to Kingston. Spina is committed to keeping ticket prices affordable (Mean Girls was $15 in advance, $20 at the door).

From his third-floor office, Spina also runs Second Chance 4 Me, which produces videos, commercials, and films and operates a media lab with classes on digital art and other computer technologies as well as a job development center.

 “People are moving here from all over the country,” Piazza said. “They look at the logistics and the expense, the distances between Manhattan and Albany, the quality of life, the affordability and accessibility…Kingston will come into its own.  In the next three years people will look back and say, ‘I always knew this would happen.’”