Triumph & Turmoil on the Regional Arts & Entertainment Scene
It's been a year of both triumph and turmoil on the regional arts and entertainment scene.
The past 12 months have seen new venues join the performing-arts community, including the new Multi-use Community Cultural Center in Rochester and a new home for Blackfriars Theatre. The Eastman Theatre and the Nazareth College Arts Center saw extensive renovations this year.
Closer to home, CMAC maintained the momentum from 2008s successful season while working out some of its bugs. But an unsure economy has meant for unstable, even precarious, times for some regional arts groups, one of which didn't survive the year.
Steppin Out explores what 2009 brought our way in the regional arts and entertainment community.
The house that George built: 'Kodak Hall' opens
WHAT'S UP? In October, the Eastman School of Music welcomed guests to its renovated concert hall, now titled ãKodak Hall at Eastman Theatre. Renovations eliminated some 800 seats on the orchestra level, while adding two-story box seating and a small lounge area. Theres also new carpeting, restored and refurbished seating, enhanced house and exit lighting and sound and more plus a new addition for the Eastman School of Music. The theater renovations, partly funded by $10 million from Eastman Kodak, were designed to improve acoustics and make the theater an overall more intimate venue to hear music. (The state also footed $13 million.)
The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra inaugurated the newly renovated venue with its Philharmonics season opener Oct. 8, which included the premiere of Douglas Lowry's Geo, an homage to the theaters designer and community benefactor George Eastman.
WHAT'S BEEN? Eastman built the theater in 1922, and it at first screened silent films with musical accompaniment by the group that developed into whats now the RPO. The modern renovations began with a $5 million investment in 2004 to replace the stage shell, install a new computerized rigging system and upgrade stage lighting and electrical service.
WHAT'S NEXT? Plans are to connect the theater with the schoolÅs new addition in 2010. In the meantime, the renovated theater is soon to host its first opera in January, when Mercury Opera Rochester and the RPO perform Verdis La Traviataä on Jan. 15 and 17. And next fall, RPO Music Director Christopher Seaman will begin his last year with the orchestra, having announced in October that he would step down following the 2010-11 season.
Also new and/or improved:
BLACKFRIARS THEATRE opened its 60th season in a new venue in September, after an old Bluebird bus-maintenance garage was renovated into the companyÅs new home at 795 E. Main St., Rochester, in time for the scheduled productions of Zorba.
For the past 11 seasons, Blackfriars had performed its shows in a second-floor theater space at Christ Church on Lawn Street, with poor accessibility and visibility, according to Blackfriars board president Danny Hoskins who said the new venue allows Blackfriars to expand the scope of the types of shows it can produce or host.
Wooing the RBTL: Sites vie to house new theater
WHAT'S UP? The Rochester Broadway Theatre League insists that its current home the Rochester Auditorium Theatre on East Main Street is too small and structurally inadequate to be competitive with nearby cities venues in bringing high-profile stage shows and concert acts (Chicago, Wicked, etc.) to the Rochester area; and that the Aud canÅt be reasonably renovated.
With the demise of the Renaissance Square proposal in Rochester came a slew of proposals from developers around the region seeking to entice the RBTL to choose their proposed venues. The RBTL invited detailed proposals from five of them: Brighton, at the Clinton Crossings Lifestyle Center on South Winton Road development. Farmington, at property owned by the Finger Lakes Gaming and Race Track. Gates and Greece, at Canal Ponds development bordering I-390. Irondequoit, at the Medley Centre (Lake Ridge Centre), being redeveloped to include residential, retail, event and office space. Webster, at a 20-acre site on 800 Salt Road, in a building that had been used as a Xerox Corp. storage facility.
In addition, Rochester City Mayor Robert Duffy has asked that the old Midtown Plaza site in the city be added to the list.
WHAT'S BEEN? This summer, the controversial Renaissance Square project, in which a downtown Rochester site at the corner of Main and Clinton was to be redeveloped into a theatre for use by RBTL and other regional groups, a transit center and Monroe Community College facilities was scuttled when the Rochester City Council rejected it after months of wrangling. (A main sticking point: where the funding would come from.)
In August, developers and government officials from around the region visited the Auditorium Theatre to learn about the RBTLs requirements for a new performing arts center to seat around 3,000 people, in a search the RBTL has labeled the Phoenix Project. Several communities and developers expressed interest (including some from Canandaigua and Victor), but only five full proposals are under consideration by the RBTL.
WHAT'S NEXT? The RBTL is continuing to explore and weigh the merits of the proposals. In the meantime, the league continues its presence at the Auditorium Theatre; coming up are performances of Spring Awakening, Grease, and Wicked, among other shows.
