After years of searching, Theatre Knoxville Downtown has a new home

After a six-year search, Theatre Knoxville Downtown has a new home. The longtime community theater will move to a former church building on Central Street.

The theater will sign a lease to rent the 800 S. Central St. building Nov. 1. It will move in early 2019 after renovations and improvements are complete. The move will double the  theater’s seating capacity from 50 to 100 and has the potential to expand its style of plays.

TKD has looked for six years to move from its cramped 319 N. Gay St. location, its home of about 2,000 square feet since 2005. Previously a restaurant and bar, the theater's dressing rooms and lobby are tiny and its only restrooms backstage. 

The theater planned to move earlier this year into a former auto repair shop on East Fifth Avenue. That fell through when the building’s $150,000 to $200,000 of renovations and improvements far exceeded the theater’s budget, TKD Board President and actress Bonny Pendleton said. 

About a mile from the theater's current spot, the Central Street building has two floors. Each is about 2,400 square feet. The basement can be used to store props and costumes, Pendleton said. 

“It’s not hugely bigger upstairs, but the difference it will make in the layout and the amenities the audience will have is large,” she said last week.

Improvements to create a theater 

Plans are to move in February or March, depending on the completion of the work needed to transform a church into a theater. “We are committing $50,000 to $75,000 for the project but continue to raise funds,” Pendleton said.   

The theater needs to build ADA accessible public restrooms and a second required exit. The current stage will be expanded. The existing pews will be used, at least at the start. 

“One of the most exciting things is that the audience will have bathrooms they can use during the show and won’t have to crawl past the stage,” Pendleton said.

The concrete building was built in the 1950s for the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church, Pendleton said. Its last use as a house of worship was as a Romanian church. 

Current owners Stephanie and Russell Balest are working with TKD on improving the building. They’ve given the theater three months’ free rent while the work is being done, Pendleton said. 

The theater’s looking for donations of bathroom building supplies and for volunteers to help remove debris, paint and move items from Gay Street. “Anything we can to help our general contractor,” Pendleton said. General contractor Steve James “is a real supporter of Theatre Knoxville.”

Bigger space, bigger shows?

With a move in the first quarter of 2019, the theater will present part of its 2018-19 season in the new location.

At its bigger space, the theater can expand the type of shows it presents. The small stage at Gay Street required TKD to basically have one-set shows with limited casts.

“The biggest play we ever did was with 12 actors. You get 12 people on that stage and it’s crowded,” Pendleton said. 

“Now we can have bigger sets, more space for actors and plays that have more people in them.”

TKD has been a longtime player in Knoxville’s arts scene. The nonprofit was chartered in 1976 as Knoxville Community Theatre and later changed its name to Theatre Knoxville. 

During its early years, the troupe had a home at the Moses Center in Knoxville. Later actors were nomads, performing in places that included the Knoxville Museum of Art and Bijou Theatre. When it moved to Gay Street, it added downtown to its name.