The 125-seat theater didn’t just represent the dream of Columbus’ Robert Hay-Smith, but the ambitions of hundreds of creatives from across the country.
It served as a meeting place where family, friends, and strangers could create community, as well as an inclusive place for both novice and professional performers.
Last week, Hay-Smith started disassembling the Harlequin Theatre in Fair Oaks Mall.
The 76-year-old actor, director, playwright, former singer and current stand-up comic opened the theater in 2012 to offer an intimate place for local thespians and musicians to meet and perform.
Prior to the theater’s opening, Hay-Smith, a director of community theater, had struggled to find a place where staging, props, costuming and other materials could be left rather than picked up and carted off with every rehearsal in a variety of locales not meant for theater presentation or viewing.
Between COVID-19’s restrictions on reduced seating and safe distancing, and the future mall plans as a community wellness, recreation and sports center, Hay-Smith planned on closing the theater by December.
The one-of-a-kind theater hosted both local and national acts, and helped jump-start the careers for many professional performers.
None of it would’ve been possible without Hay-Smith, as everything in the former shoe store, from the stage lighting to the bar, was made possible by thousands of his own dollars.
The first play in the Harlequin was "The Night I died at the Palace Theatre" and the last was "Gladys in Wonderland."
Hay-Smith shared his goals, and love for community theater, with The Republic in the weeks leading up to the first-ever performance at the venue.
"Small theaters can have a wonderful feeling of intimacy and immediacy for both the audience and the actors," Hay-Smith said in February of 2012. "An actor on stage who can look out over interested faces as opposed to the cavernous blackness of a large auditorium can make a special connection"
While the Harlequin will be missed, the bonds created at the forum will last lifetimes.
