Opera house undergoes $18M renovation in its 150th year

NEWPORT, R.I. -- In its heyday, the stage at Newport's Opera House hosted everything from performances of vaudeville and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show to appearances by abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Now, one of the nation's oldest opera houses is undergoing an $18 million renovation after spending decades as a movie theater.

The not-for-profit group that owns it hopes to make it into a centerpiece of live performance and a gathering place for the seaside resort town already known around the world for its jazz and folk festivals.

The Newport Opera House Theater and Performing Arts Center is due to open in December in celebration of its 150th anniversary. The people behind it hope the 700-seat venue will become a new destination for audiences and artists, and provide a place to keep the music alive in Newport year-round.

"There really isn't anything like this. It's totally unique," Alison Vareika, chair of the center's board, said during a tour of the building.

While thousands of music lovers flock to the city every summer for the Newport Folk Festival and Newport Jazz Festival, there are limited venues for live music, said Jay Sweet, the festivals' executive producer.

Because of those limitations, they always are on the hunt for more places that can host musicians during a festival weekend, he said.

"We could definitely use more capacity to explore other unique events," Sweet said, adding a venue with the history of the Opera House behind it is an added attraction. "Having it set up specifically for music is a real positive for the city."

Opera Houses were built across the country in the mid- to late 1800s as a dedicated performance space used by the town for all kinds of public gatherings, according to Ken Stein, president and CEO of the League of Historic American Theatres.

They later gave way to vaudeville houses, then movie palaces, he said.

The Newport Opera House opened in 1867, two years after the Civil War ended.

In the decades after, actors such as John Barrymore and Mary Pickford, known for her silent films, were among those to take the stage.

In 1929, it was fully renovated and began showing movies.

Fifty years later, it was renovated again into a three-screen theater.

The current project got going in 1999, when a committee of local civic leaders determined that the city needed a performing-arts center, Vareika said. They later purchased the theater, and in 2010, it was closed.

The space has been gutted and slowly is being rebuilt. Being added are modern bathrooms, up-to-date accessibility, concessions and a room that will allow parents to bring crying babies and still watch the show. A roof deck will look out over Newport Harbor and will be accessible year-round.