Irvington Theater Reopens this Fall

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The interior of the renovated Irvington Town Hall Theater (photo courtesy of the Irvington Theater and the Rivertowns Current

September 3, 2024

By Kris DiLorenzo–

The “jewel of a theater on the Hudson,” as The New York Times once dubbed the Irvington Theater, is on track to reopen in October.

The 432-seat theater, built in 1902 inside the village’s Town Hall and modeled after Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., has been dark since the Covid-19 pandemic caused the theater to close in March 2020. The theater, at 85 Main Street, has always shut between May and September because it lacks air conditioning. Now, thanks to Village funding, and $625,000 in state funding secured by Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins and former Assemblyman Tom Abinanti, that problem is being solved.

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The Village has been busy repairing and upgrading the Classic Revival style building to contemporary standards. A newly installed HVAC system (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) will ventilate the theater and cool the air. Interior improvements include repainting, new carpeting, and an updated sound system. The ornamental metal ceiling had to be replaced because parts of it had rotted out over the years and become very porous; the project team bought individual panels to replace it.

The building’s iconic clocktower had already been renovated in 2022, the original time frame planned for the reopening.

Mechanical engineers and experts in construction, carpentry, electrics, and HVAC installation are putting the finishing touches on the theater now. The playing space and backstage configuration will remain the same: a proscenium stage and apron, five backstage dressing rooms, and seating in the orchestra, mezzanine, balcony, and six gold-leafed boxes.

No one could be happier about the transformation than theater manager Greg Allen, an award-winning author and director. “We plan to do an open house in late October,” he told the Current, “and the Clocktower Players and Broadway Training Center will both be back in November.”

The Clocktower Players, Broadway Training Center (BTC) and River’s Edge Theatre Company (RETC), are the theater’s “arts partners.”

The Clocktower Players plan to return with two productions: “The Color Purple,” Oct. 19-20; and Irving Berlin’s musical “White Christmas,” on Dec. 21-22. Hastings-based BTC offers classes for children and holds performances. RETC, a fledgling company in 2019, held its first two staged readings in the theater, and two outdoor productions in the Main Street School parking lot.

“As an arts partner, Irvington Theater supports our efforts to bring theatre for social change to the Irvington and Rivertowns communities,” co-founder (with her husband David), artistic director, and RETC president Megan Covington said. “They help us with space, permits, marketing, and volunteers.”

She explained how RETC first connected with the Irvington Theater. “In 2019 I went to Greg and told him that we were starting a theatre company with the mission to inspire social change. He was so supportive! He offered to make us an arts partner and help our dream become a reality. We were so grateful for his help in getting River’s Edge up and running.”

While the theater has been under renovation, all productions were relocated to other venues. “We’ve produced at the library, behind the Main Street School with plays and films, the Greenburgh Nature Center in Scarsdale, and Mercy University in Dobbs Ferry,” Allen recounted. Covid-19 also introduced a new way to reach audiences: hybrid. “Our short play fest [Arts Incubator Short Play Fest] has been hybrid, which allows us to have playwrights from around the globe, and in person at Mercy, and more playwrights on our YouTube channel,” Allen explained. “Our YouTube has really taken off during this time.”

The theater’s annual As iFF (All Shorts Film Festival) went virtual in October 2020, presenting live-action, animated, and documentary short films chosen from hundreds of international submissions.

The major factor in the slow progress of renovations — and the rising cost — was the difficulty of making improvements to a building on the National Register of Historic Places: trying to retrofit modern equipment without damaging the interior or exterior architectural features was tricky.

This story comes from the Rivertowns Current. To read the rest, go to: https://substack.com/@rivertownscurrent

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