A construction crew in Stillwater this week hoisted 300-pound ice blocks into place and then, with chain saws buzzing, cut and shaped their frozen creation into a towering ice maze.
The parking-lot-sized maze filled with ice sculptures and an ice slide was opening to the public Friday evening, but how it came together was something of a leap of faith, said Bil MacLeslie, production manager for the Zephyr Theatre in Stillwater's north end.
Faced with a winter without shows or audiences, the Zephyr joined the city's effort to make outdoor winter attractions to keep crowds and add a bit of life to the usually thriving downtown.
That's how, with no experience building anything remotely like it, the theater staff settled on some kind of ice adventure, using the St. Paul Winter Carnival ice palaces of years past as inspiration.
"We're figuring out how to do stuff," said MacLeslie. That's been the theme at the theater for months now.
The theater usually does more than 100 performances of six plays in a year, along with 20 to 30 concerts and children's shows. All of that came to an end with the pandemic.
Even though most of their revenue was gone for the year, the staff and Executive Director Calyssa Hall dreamed up ways to stay in business.
This summer it was Shakespeare in the Park … ing Lot, where actors pulled off a socially distanced version of "As You Like It." A beer garden boosted revenue. The theater also did 30 outdoor concerts over the summer using a stage set up on the front steps.