Like all stories, this one has two sides.

On the one side, there's a building. A structure. A shell. On the other side, there's this living, changing thing. The beginning of new beginnings. The start from which all starts to come will take their cue.

About the building: It used to be called the Yellow Brick Studio. It was the second-floor home to the community theater troupe, The Actors' Group, and though it was small — tiny, in fact — it was big enough for the likes of David Mamet, William Shakespeare and August Wilson. Plus, it had space left over for a set of risers that could seat 40 people.

Small? Yes. Perfect? The Actors' Group thought so. That made the move to a new location difficult. After 15 years, a place starts to feel like home. And after 45 days, a move starts to feel like it's never going to end.

Last Saturday was the 45th moving day for the staff and volunteers that make up the The Actors' Group. By 7 p.m., the last vestiges of its old home in Kaka'ako had been moved into its new home in Chinatown.

"With each task that gets completed, we get happier and happier about being here," said Brad Powell, TAG's artistic director under whose guidance TAG has received 34 Po'okela Award nominations (our own version of the Tony Awards) and five awards.

"But every time we turn around — as is always the case — there are expenses we didn't expect."

Powell said TAG signed a two-year lease on the building, with the option of renewal when the lease expires. Powell also said that patrons will see a $1 increase in ticket prices, a measure that will offset the cost of higher rent.

It's been about one year since the theater group received word that the Yellow Brick Studio was to be sold to new tenants, and the search for a new place took about as long before the group found its new digs.

Now it calls 1116 Smith St. home, and to outside eyes this new place will be easy to get used to. It now seats 70 people, but the smallness, which had become the Yellow Brick Studio's most charming feature, remains. But there's enough space for a real box office (tickets were sold on the stairs in the old place) and there's plenty of space in the garden, a lush area that appears even more alive against the urban contrast of the city buildings. But what about the reach-out-and-touch-the-cast closeness? That's still there. The bricked back wall that provided the backdrop for so many productions? Yeah, that'll be there. The small casts and sometimes offbeat plays that showcase this city's hidden stage talent? In spades.

Now for the second side of this story: the life inside the building.

Though the signs of life are there (in the form of moving furniture, power tools and the frustrated groans of people who have been doing this for 45 days too long), it's tonight when the building really comes to life, because it's when its seats and stage are filled that the second floor of the historic Mendonca Building is fulfilling its calling.

Under the direction of Jacin Harter, a first-time director with The Actors' Group but a veteran (though a young one at just 26) in theater production, TAG takes on Sarah Ruhl's "The Clean House," which opens tonight to a full house.

The play follows a young housekeeper named Matilde (played for TAG by Jessica Kauhane) who'd rather be telling jokes — a legacy that was passed down to her by her parents who literally died laughing - than cleaning house. She forms a friendship with Virginia (Catherine Fong), sister of the lady of the house (Lane, played by Victoria Gail-White), who loves to clean (today we call that obsessive-compulsive disorder), freeing Virginia to finally write the perfect joke. Of course, like life, theater is never as easy as all that, and drama ensues when the man of the house (Charles, played by John Wythe White) leaves his lady with a mess - the emotional kind — on her hands. Is maid Matilde more adept at cleaning up emotional messes than dust and water spots? Ah, but that would be telling. It's enough to say this: "The Clean House."

As the director of the first production to be staged in the new space, Harter acknowledged that there's much more to contend with than just the opening of a play. There are questions about whether construction will be completed enough to open the theater to the public. There's the matter of a new stage and a set that hadn't been fully built when rehearsals started. And then there are the usual questions, like the one about costumes ("Boss, how's this?" asks an actor in a floral dress and crocheted cardigan. "Better than the suit?").

"Am I nervous? Yeah. Always. But this time is a little different," said Harter, a native of Kansas City, Mo., who's been in Ho- nolulu for a year and a half. "It's strange watching the theater build up around the show. I'm anxious and thrilled to see how everything will turn out. It's all so new. This is the beginning, and it's exciting. But I still don't know whether I'm coming or going!"

It's a good thing then, that everyone else hunched over various projects in the unfinished theater knew where they were headed: for a finish line that is clearly marked by tonight's opening.

"All of these people are volunteers. And many of our props are donations from people's homes, many of our costumes are made from donated clothes. People bring much more to TAG than the desire to volunteer," said Harter, who moved to Honolulu because he had heard of this city's love for community theater. "Just the other day someone told me that if you do something well, you shouldn't do it for free. 'You're right,' I said. 'You should do it for love.' "