Call it a multiact play. After more than a decade, the plan to restore and reopen the Newport Opera House continues.
In July, the Newport Performing Arts Center finished razing walls that have segregated the original theater for decades. In the coming months, the center’s board hopes to put a price tag on the next step: restoring the interior and returning theater to the building for the first time in at least eight decades.
Organizers say the project is as much about bringing the arts to downtown Newport as stimulating economic activity in a city dependent on tourism.
“It is about tourism. It is about Newport as a whole community and that’s powerful,” board member Dominique Alfandre said.
As envisioned by the board, the now vacant theater would sit 800 and host a variety of events, including theater, ballet, corporate meetings and lectures. Former hotel rooms above the lobby would take on new life as offices and support space for the performing arts. New, sweeping windows would offer patrons inside the lobby views of Washington Square outside.
Arts center board Chairwoman Alison Vareika is hesitant to speculate on the project’s cost before the formal study is completed, but a 2001 estimate pegged a restoration cost at $4 million.
To bring the project to reality Vareika suspects the center will rely on a mix of private donations, foundation support, tax credits and perhaps revenue bonds. To remove the partitions in the theater, the organization drew on a $100,000 grant from the Alletta Morris McBean Charitable Trust. It spent about half the grant on removing the walls, with the rest slated for work to stabilize the structure and ensure it is weather-tight.
But Vareika anticipates the center will need far more money. So the long-time Newport gallery owner is drumming up support and harping on the potential for a theater to deliver 800 people to the epicenter of downtown.
Such an influx of traffic could serve as a boon for restaurants in Washington Square and those along America’s Cup Avenue and Thames Street, Vareika said. And year-round, a theater would create nightlife apart from the bars and restaurants.
The idea to restore the theater started with such a beehive in mind. In the late 1990s, BankNewport’s Community Reinvestment Committee was exploring community-development opportunities. J. Timothy O’Reilly, now the bank’s chairman, and Paul Hogan honed in on developing a theater. After surveying organizations across the state to find out what performing-arts organizations required, they scouted sites on Aquidneck Island. Alfandre, who joined the project in 1999, said the Opera House fit the bill.
The theater sits within walking distance of almost every major hotel in Newport. There’s plenty of parking with the visitors center’s 700-spot parking lot two blocks away and a municipal lot up the road.
The building is also surrounded by history. The Old Colony House – a meeting place for the Colonial legislature – stands at the head of Washington Square and the historic Jane Pickens Theater is just a few buildings to the north. The Opera House itself is one of the oldest theaters in the country.
The theater is also just the right size. Vareika said that with 800 seats the venue could attract, afford and turn a profit on big-name acts.
But it will be an uphill battle to find money to pay for the restoration. Since a movie theater left a year ago, the theater has sat empty. And because the last theatrical show closed there more than 80 years ago, few in town link the structure with the performing arts.
“We’re still trying to get people in the community to understand the need for this particular facility,” she said. •
