The Boston Herald reports on the Boston boom in new and renovated theater openings in the next 18 months. It’s only a net gain of 4000 seats, spread among 8 new spaces (one of them having 2500 seats), but it’s bound to change the theater/audience ecology in subtle and interesting ways.
The two most interesting (to me, anyway) are the new Boston Opera House, a renovation of a 1928 Beaux Arts box of 2500 seats, and the brand new 380-seat Charles Mosesian Theatre within the Arsenal Center for the Performing Arts just outside of town.
The big box is interesting for its renovator — Clear Channel Communications — and for its tenants — including Boston Ballet’s recently displaced Nutcracker performances. Clear Channel, as you may recall, is the mega-corporation owner of major radio, billboard, and theatrical venues and productions. With their own venue in Boston’s downtown for their touring Broadway productions, other venues that used to rely on these tours for big revenue are likely shaking in their boots.
In an ironic and elegant twist, the Boston Ballet’s Nutcracker — which is to be bumped from its traditional home in the Wang Center thanks to a Clear Channel Christmas show — will now be performing in a Clear Channel house.
The small house in the Arsenal Center is interesting for other reasons. One of the two primary tenants, the New Repertory Theatre, will be moving into its first, professional-grade performance space, after many years in a cramped but cozy (and low-cost) space in a Newton church. It’s bound to be a bumpy ride as this outstanding theater makes a transition to much higher production and overhead costs, and the lure of more extravagant productions.
It’s always exciting to have more space and more seats. The management and artistic challenge comes when organizations stretch their limits to fill them both.
NOTE: Casual weblog readers may wonder why I keep coming back to Boston for topics and news…I live in Madison, Wisconsin, after all. First, it’s a fascinating cultural ecology — not as massive as New York, but bubbling with juicy politics and public arts conversation. Second, it’s my old home town.
