Macha Theatre from “The Office”

A few weeks ago, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, sent me a link to this article from local website Franklin Avenue which stated that in the Season 7 episode of The Office titled “Andy’s Play”, the Macha Theatre in West Hollywood stood in for the Scranton, Pennsylvania “Loose Screw Playhouse” where Andy Bernard (aka Ed Helms) performed in a local production of the Tony award-winning musical Sweeney Todd.  As it turns out, the author of the Franklin Avenue website, whose name is also coincidentally Mike, had actually lived across the street from the Macha Theatre for six years, so he recognized the place immediately when it popped up onscreen.  And I have to say here that the “Andy’s Play” episode of The Office was easily one of my very favorite episodes of the entire series.  I’m sure me liking it so much had to do with the fact that I have acted in quite a few plays over the course of my acting career and can definitely relate to the subject matter.  Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) acting out an entire episode of Law & Order as his audition piece for the play and Andy’s phone ringing in the middle of the show while he was onstage were both such absolutely SPOT ON representations of the idiocracy that can, and does often, ensue during the course of a production, I cannot even tell you!   And I literally just about died laughing when, during a quiet moment in the performance, Michael knocked over a bottle of wine and sent it rolling down the sloped theatre floor all the way to the front of the stage.  Absolutely love it!  So, once I read the Franklin Avenue article, I immediately added the Macha Theatre to my “To Stalk” list and dragged the Grim Cheaper right out to West Hollywood the very next weekend.

Before stalking the theater, I had mistakenly assumed that both the interior and the exterior of the property had been used in the “Andy’s Play” episode, but when we arrived there we discovered that that was not actually the case.  Odalys Nanin, the theatre’s super nice owner, happened to be on-site while we were stalking the place and she was kind enough to chat with us and give us a tour of the premises.  Amazingly enough, though, up until just a few days prior to our visit, she had absolutely NO idea whatsoever that the exterior of her theatre had been used on The Office.  Apparently, another stalker had come by to take pictures of the place and when Odalys inquired as to why, he told her – much to her surprise – that it had been featured on the hit show.  As it turns out, no actual filming had been done on the premises, but producers had in fact used an old stock photo of the theatre, one that had actually been taken back when the place was known as the Globe Playhouse, in the episode.  As you can see in the above picture and screen capture, the theatre looks much different today than it did when the stock photo was taken.  The exterior wood beams have since been removed from the property’s façade, as have the windows, and a large marquee has also since been added to the premises.

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Thankfully though, as you can see in the above photograph which I got off of the Macha Theatre website, the barn-style front doors, the “1107” address number, and the comedy and tragedy masks that appeared in the “Andy’s Play” episode of The Office have all been left intact.

After I got home, I did some digging and discovered that the interior theatre scenes of the “Andy’s Play” episode had been filmed at the Assistance League Playhouse in Hollywood, just a few blocks east of Helen Bernstein High School, where Glee is filmed!  So, you know what that means – in the very near future I will be making a stalking pilgrimage out to Hollywood to stalk the place!

You can watch Michael’s absolutely HILAROUS Law & Order audition piece by clicking above.  For those who have not yet seen the “Andy’s Play” episode, Michael was using the piece to audition for a role in the musical Sweeney Todd, not for a role on Law & Order.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from Franklin Avenue, for finding this location and to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about it!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: Macha Theatre from the “Andy’s Play” episode of The Office is located at 1107 North Kings Road in West Hollywood.  You can visit the theatre’s official website here.  The interior theatre scenes from the episode were filmed at the Assistance League Playhouse, which is located at 1367 North St. Andrews Place in Hollywood.  You can visit that theatre’s website here.