North Shore rises from the ashes

BEVERLY -- North Shore Music Theatre is refurbished and ready to reopen this week, just 3 1/2 months after a freak electrical fire nearly destroyed the theater's interior.

A touring production of ''The Full Monty," designed for North Shore's reconstructed circular stage, is set to open Tuesday. Ninety percent of tickets are already sold for the first week's shows. And the crowds that come will settle into bigger, better-upholstered burgundy seats.

Early last week, those 1,500 seats were bolted into North Shore's auditorium. And as carpenters finished off work on the stage and orchestra pit, a crew from ''The Full Monty" hauled scenery and props into the playhouse.

''We are in the business of creating and presenting musical theater," says artistic director Jon Kimbell. ''That is why our shows must go on."

On July 14, an accidental, after-hours blaze ruined the stage and pit, melted lights and sound equipment, incinerated musical instruments, and scorched most of the interior.

Rebuilding an 1,800-seat venue normally takes at least two years, says North Shore's director of production and operations Mike Moore. But the company couldn't afford that kind of time. The tally for damages at the $12-million not-for-profit theater is expected to run between $4 million and $5 million, according to Kimbell. That includes ''uninsurable" costs such as bringing the 50-year-old theater up to federal safety and handicap-access codes, and revenues lost on canceled summer concerts, education programs, and ''Cinderella," a lavish musical that opened and closed the night of the fire, notes Kimbell. North Shore trustees have launched a $7 million fund-raising campaign to assuage costs.

Few shared Kimbell's optimistic prediction that North Shore would reopen in time to stage ''The Full Monty" this fall.

After all, North Shore's charred and soggy auditorium still reeked of smoke as recently as mid-August, when most of the theater staff packed up and headed to Boston, where Wang Center for the Performing Arts president Josiah Spaulding had turned over the Wang's Shubert Theatre, at cost, to North Shore's late-summer productions of ''Abyssinia" and ''Camelot."

And, as Moore explains, ''You don't just go in and strip a place like a theater after a fire."

''We had to look at every piece of the building and equipment" to determine and document damages before the theater interior was demolished, Moore explains.

Demolition began in late August and continued through early September. By mid-month, the theater was a circular arena, stripped to its studs.

A series of specialized electricians, technicians, and theater craftsmen entered the scene once the demolition ended. One crew ''roughed in" the electrical system; another replaced North Shore's fire alarms with a state-of-the-art wireless alert system, says Moore.

A theater seating specialist -- who last summer helped Moore scale back North Shore's layout to improve site lines, accommodate 15 pairs of handicap seats, and install plusher seats for all -- returned in late September. He and his crew began to frame the reconfigured theater, which now accommodates 300 fewer patrons than it did before the fire, according to Moore.

Rough work on the auditorium wrapped up on Oct. 9, says Moore. ''It was at that point that people began to question whether we were going to be ready to open" 2 1/2 weeks later, says the seemingly unflappable Moore.

Not every detail will be finished in time for Tuesday night's overture, says Moore. ''But we're ready for occupancy," he adds.

And Moore, for one, looks forward to hearing ''The Full Monty" cast sing the show opener. Its title? ''Let's Play."

Maureen Dezell can be reached at dezell@globe.com