Michael King

August 19, 2020 - Interview between Scott Morris and Princess Wilson.

Mike King is the owner and founder of Village Theater, an improv theater that operates just outside of the Grant Street tunnel on Decatur Street.

Okay, Mike King, you there?

Yes. Okay.

So this is Scott Morris with Mike King on August 19th. And we're talking about, uh, the Grand Street tunnel, Village theater and, um, other things like that here on tape.

Alright. So, Mike, if you want to start, I know you guys. I just was looking at the Village Theatre, started in 2011? Is that right, or can you give me kind of the whole history, if you don't mind?

Sure. Um, so we actually, uh, we started as a group kind of performing in 2007, but we opened our doors in the old fourth Ward, Uh, Grant Park area in 2008.

Uh, we were down, um, bon the corner of Boulevard and Decatur at 486 Decatur Street. Uh, and what then was deemed the historic shopping center.

We always thought it was very funny. It was a historic shopping center. The historic shopping center had, uh, Black Tie Barbecue, Nails, which then became Nails Two because they moved down the street.  Um, we had a, uh, post office, an accounting firm that doubled as a, um, as a church on the weekends.

Um, and then upstairs. We had to take a hair salon. Um, and then Lenny's punk bar was upstairs when we first moved in.

Yeah, I remember Lenny’s,  yeah.

Yeah. And Lenny’s moved from being on Memorial to that property. Um, and then they had… the year. We moved in. I want to say it was 08 . Well, we know. I mean, I know it was 08, but I want to say it was the year we moved in Lenny's that summer or earlier that year was when the tornado came through, and it ripped off all the air conditioning units on our building, but it it only affected the people on the top. So, Lenny’s, that summer, brutal, Lenny’s that summer, didn't have any air conditioning. And it was like, Wow. Oh, my God.

When they stayed open? 
But, yeah, I'm sorry? But it stayed in the entire summer. Yeah. Yeah. It is one of the things that eventually hurt Lenny’s because bands were like, nah, until they get air we're not coming back. Uh, and I think it affected them eventually.

Which, to be truthful. We got…. when we moved into our space, we moved on our space and we didn't have a dime. And I mean, we didn't have a dime to spare. So, like, we built out in the middle of the night and we had friends that worked in the building industry that will come over and help us during the day. And, you know, we built everything.

Um, and we were open for 2.5 years, and Lenny's had closed and some idiot, uh, started running raves up in their space illegally. Um, and he got busted multiple times for under age drinking. Well, they checked everybody in the building and the night they checked, uh, police officer walked up, he's like, hey, can, uh, can I see your business license?  “Sure.” Um uh, and we start like, hemming and hawing. And then a couple walks in with a six pack and, like, “what are they doing?” 

We’re like, “they're going to see the show.”

“You got an alcohol license?” And I'm like, “No, we're BYOB.”  He’s like, “you gotta BYOB license?” We’re like, “we didn’t know you needed a b y o b license.” He's like, “Yeah, man.” So we got busted for BYOB not having a building uh, uh business license. Um, and it was the downturn in the economy. So nobody wanted to close small businesses that were trying to make a difference in communities, You know what I mean? 

Yeah.

So, city people downtown helped us, and we made a deal with the city, which was, uh, we had to have a fire marshal sit and watch our shows every time we perform.  And within 6 to 9 months, we had to move.  Um, well, we couldn't find anything. Couldn't have anything built out in that time, period. But we had to stick that time frame. So when we got to the end of our time period of nine months, we went back down the city hall and had conversations. And they're like, move upstairs.  Lenny’s is c.o.’d  properly. We're like, “Yeah, but it's a dump, and there’s no air conditioning!” They're like, “Do you guys want stay open or not?” So we kept our space downstairs where we taught classes and it was air conditioned, and it was really nice, and we can do and we were doingBYOB at the time. And we didn't do BYOB. And then we had to get rid of BYOB. And we went upstairs to a crappy space. So at some point, you know, we're getting 10 to 20 people, and we're just like, people are like, “Oh, man, people won’t like us,” and  it's like, “they love us, dude! You can't drink. There's no air conditioning, and they're still coming to see it. 

Uh, I was gonna ask real quick. Was the fire marshal entertained that that had to come to the shows?

You know what? They loved it. And some of them came back on off nights with their wives.

And whenever they show up, we're like, “Don't worry about it.”  “No, we gotta pay you.” I'm like, “No, you don't.” They’re like, “you guys pay us to sit and watch you. I'm paying for a ticket, man.” 

Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. Yeah.

Um, and I stayed friends with a lot of those guys through the years, and I do events, and I will see them at event and these normal, like, guys that are very serious. We'll just be like, “Hey, man, what's up?” And it's always good to catch up to.

So Um, yeah, it was, uh, so we were there, Um, And then, uh, at some point, I can't remember if... No, because it had to be. So then, uh, because of all that, we had to find a new space, and we were looking all over town. Um, but somehow, every time we found the space someplace else, something happened around here that pulled us back.

Um, and then we made a deal with Perennial Properties, and the guys were very, very nice, and they looked at us as an anchor spot. And the thing about it is like, look, we were we were an underground punk, we were under a punk bar, and we were like an underground punk improv group. We drank through the entire thing. We had a good time. Um, and it was kind of like, screw it, we're out to have fun. I hope you have fun with this If you don't, we're sorry.

Um, and that vibe really kind of took off. Uh, and people thought they could come down. And for the lack of better words, out party or out have fun. Um, like, there was one group and I'm going off on a tangent. But there was one group that came in and had a 30 gallon cooler when we were BYOB. 50% of the cooler was just stocked with beer. The other was just hard liquor and two bottles of wine. And it's closer to our Christmas time period.

Um, and they thought they were gonna out party us and they were getting rowdy and loud and stuff, and we ended up taking our show in our old space and literally started performing out in the middle of the audience. And any time they did anything. We just grabbed booze from them and drank, drank it all. Or we threw it to cast members and let them drink.

And these guys were like... And when people would walk back on the stage and the focus went back on stage, one of us would walk over and go “seriously, guys, don’t fuck with this. This is our house, like, we know what we're doing.” They came back forever. I always remember them coming back because they had such a good time. And they, you know, they were just having a good time, and we just knew how to have a good time with them and not let that take away from the show. It added to it. And that was kind of the culture and the influence. Honestly, now what? I'm talking about it. Its the influence of the Old Fourth Ward because we had some homeless guys, you know, at one point, um, their nicknames unfortunately, were Shitty Steve and Old Man River. But, in this building, this historic building, these guys ended up, uh, somehow breaking into our electrical box that was outside, but it was behind, it went down an alleyway, but it was directly behind our bar area in our theater.

And the only reason we knew they were living there is one of the guys was allergic to smoke. And one night he came in. He was like, “Dude, I thought we all said we're not smoking in the theater.  We’re like, “we're not. You're allergic. We get it.” He's like, “there’s smoke in here” and we trace down the smoking. It was coming through our bar closet we went on to and these guys had set up. Now it was ingenious on these guys. Why? They had power.

Yeah.

They were in an electrical box.  And I was like, you know, wow.! So we had to negotiate with these guys. Like, “look, you can’t be loud and smoking during these hours.” “We could do whatever we want.” “Technically, you can't. You don't live here, right? We're trying to work with you, man.”

We have other guys in the neighborhood that literally would come by when they knew the show was letting out and open up the door and just said good night and thank you for coming by.

And it freaks some people out. And other people, you know, the suburbs people were freaked out. The people in the neighborhood were, like, “man, this place is fucking cool.”

Um, and it just gave us a a vibe. Um, and it kind of went with our personality where you had to go some place that at the time was  very uncomfortable to go to a certain degree. Um, but if you did it, we're gonna have a good time. Because these guys were so underground, you had to go take that risk.  Um, or that girl too.

And that kind of grew and that was the family vibe and the friendship that kind of formed out of that. And because of that time period in that space, the 13 original cast members. I mean, we try and get together all the time, but we're on text message chains and somebody said it best, it's like that time period connected us. Um, and it fits us. Uh, and we're growing with that, uh, which has been nice. Um, so, yeah, it was, so we we partied there and had a good time, and we knew the cops and the cops knew us. And then all of a sudden, it was like, George and Weezy. We moved on up down the street, and we got this nice theater.

Haha. And I remember the first night we were all just standing there going, This is way too nice for us. We're a bunch of idiots. What the hell's going on, um, and it it it kind of just changed the attitude of the theater, too. Um, uh, and then, you know, shows were different instead of being, uh, you know, in you, and on top of you, and all around you, we were just on top of you, and we were dominating that way now and differently. Um, and then it complemented, you know, and I always said it. I'll say it this way. Here, Um, I always sometimes I sometimes look at VT [Village Theater] as a sitcom. Right? Uh, our pilot kind of season once when we were underground, it, uh, we started at the 10 High in the Highlands.

Then kind of ‘Hey, I think the show could work,’ and these guys are crazy and nuts. And we had three great years or four great years in VT 1.0 with the ending cliffhanger of probably season four, we are moving up to Lenny’s, are these idiots gonna make it?

Um, And then we get this beautiful space. Uh, and the time period there is kind of like, what's going to happen there. Um, yeah, it's been a ride. I don't know if I'm helping you at all, dude.

No, no, no, no, no. This is all fascinating, and this is great. This is great history. And it's good too, like, understand the the larger context of how that that's why I want you to run it down. How How you all ended up being there and and, uh, being I've lived in the neighborhood, uh, four years. But I grew up in Atlanta, so I've kind of been able to to watch groups like yours, um, and and watch you move around. And so it's it's cool understanding that where where you we're coming from and how and how did you, I mean, you know, we're we're only talking a quarter mile down the road, but did did you feel when you know, when you moved into the into the new place into the pencil factory? I mean, obviously, that's a bright, shiny new building at the time, you moved in there. But what was the kind of neighborhood vibe and and how did you you know, Did you continue with I don't do the outside of the theater was the ethos any different than when you moved?

So, um, in the time period that we moved, you're right. It was a brand new shiny thing. And, uh, our landlords, uh, Perennial Properties. We didn't know how good we had it, because they really wanted good tenants in there because they didn't want to deal with headache. They weren't just giving the place up to anybody.

Um, so um Intown [Market], um, was owned by two brothers. One of them was a lawyer, and they had multiple shops around town. Um Buffy the vampire uh Buffy the, uh, account slayer, uh, had this space in between us. And then it was us. And next it was Blusion. And then after that, it was a hair salon that had been there for since the beginning. And then it was Caramba and Caramba had moved from Virginia Highlands. Uh, because their landlords jacked their rent up. Um, yeah, And at that time period, the brand new building, all good tenants, we all look out for each other on that section. Uh, and then, like, I joke Nails, two. They got, you know, they were added on to the sitcom. They got reupped and they were still neighbors down the street. Uh, and then the bar, we were, uh we always went to after shows. Was now closer. Um, and we had a restaurant bar that we would go to, um, and it became more of a ...we really all got together, Um, because the theater was getting bigger.  We were finding places to get together that were outside the theater before we went to the theater. So Caramba became our kind of hide away, and it was only 4 doors down from the theater

People would come and hang out in the bar area waiting for us to hang out, like, back in the day or just make appearances. And we're like, it's too much, man. We're gonna be on for too long now, Um, and not even thinking about it that way. Uh, so we would go hide in Caramba in the corner, and we knew the owners. They knew what we like. Uh, and just before we left, we did a shot with them every night before we went on stage.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. 

And then after it, we hang out there and then we go down to the corner bar, which Oh, God, what was before it was Bada Bings, it was, um, two names. It was the two names before that, and we knew those guys. So it was like… It honestly, looking back, it was very ... You don't appreciate how niche-y and click-y, but neighborhood it was. But it was. We knew everybody

Yeah

We walk in to intown at any time. And at that point, they're only open till midnight. But we could walk in at any time, and we knew every employee.

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