Latest Bold Plan for 143-Year-Old Opera House

At the Newport Opera House last Wednesday, cluttered remains of the evacuating Boston Culinary Group were strewn across the lobby. The group rented the space to run first-run films, but brought its term to an end on Aug. 29, citing low box office sales as the reason for its departure.

"We were hoping they'd be out by now," said Scott Mohon, the new executive director of the Newport Performing Arts Center (NPAC). Mohon recently transplanted from Victoria, TX, where he ran the Victoria Theater, to become chief fundraiser and visionary for NPAC, a nonprofit group that purchased the historic Newport Opera House building nearly a decade ago and began renovating it with the goal of creating a performing arts hub in downtown Newport.

"I'm a big communication tool," Mohon said. "Marketing, administration, fundraising—it all comes under the executive director."

A few short weeks ago, Mohon was hoping to find a new tenant to rent the space so that he and the board could continue fundraising for the gargantuan renovation project before moving forward on any work.

But now the executive director has a more ambitious plan that moves the demolition up, puts people in the theater watching live performances by the holidays, and incorporates fundraising into the building's use going forward.

The idea has built-in challenges, beginning with the NPAC group's financial footing.

"We don't have a lot of headroom," Mohon admitted. "That's one of the reasons why I want to move this through to the next 90 days … because every day the theater's closed, we're not making money. And every day we're dark, we're losing an opportunity."

Mohon said that he and the board hope to begin interior demolition by Oct. 1, less than one month away.

"We're going to take down all the walls for theater 1 and 2, and restore it all back to a single stage," he said, standing in one of the triplex theaters. "So that we can start small-scale programming in music, theater, dance—we're hoping by December."

Once the walls are ripped out, the audience will be able to see some of the underpinnings of the future vision. That, according to Mohon, is good policy for fundraising.

"For people who want to support the project, you now have a better idea of what we're doing," he said.

Hanging along the front wall just inside the door and bookended by gumball machines, colorful schematics show what the Newport Opera House will look like when the NPAC project has returned it to its former glory. The original stage will be both wider and longer, so that New York producers can bring pre-Broadway shows to Newport. In its 19th century heyday, the Newport Opera House did serve as a testing ground for New York shows.

"I want to take it back to that possibility," Mohon said, "because I've got some connections back in New York that are very interested in this project."

On the wall, Mohon points to a picture of an elegant lobby with spacious, arching cove ceilings.

"These are the cove ceilings on the second floor lobby that are still there," he explained. "When it was converted into a triplex in 1980, these are all dropped ceilings."

As you enter any one of the triplex's cinemas, it's hard to picture that the building was once one huge theater, or even a "movie palace." The upstairs cinema had actually been the balcony, reaching way out over about three-quarters of the orchestra seating below. When the low ceilings are ripped away, according to restoration experts Mohon has heard from, the high, arched ceilings should be in very good shape. The two downstairs cinemas are the original orchestra seating divided in two. And for 30 years, the former vaudeville stage has been hiding behind those screens, crumbling.

According to Mohon, the two-story organ pipes are still in the walls near the stage along with sound passages that funneled the sound around and let it out into the audience. These openings, now covered with gratings, look something like fireplaces. According to the renovation plans, these walls, too, will be ripped away to make the organ pipes visible.

The Opera House was repurposed twice since P.C. Shanahan first opened it to a packed house in 1867, with a theater performance of the tragedy Lucretia Borgia.

"He built it as a community center, so this was the heart of Newport, where people came for social interaction," Mohon said. "We're going to return that, so that it's everything that it used to be, with live entertainment."

In the 19th century, the Opera House saw everything from elegant balls to lecture series, boxing matches to world-class acrobatic troupes. Then in 1929, under the direction of owner Harry Horgan, it became a large movie palace. Around 1980, a second screen was added, and in 2001, with a third screen, the interior became the triplex it was until just a few days ago.

When the NPAC group refurbished the 1867-era façade, they left a bit of the 1929 stucco in salute to the history. In the same fashion, Mohon and planners, like Mohamad Farzan of Newport Collaborative Architects, hope to weave bits of the Opera House's past incarnations into the interior renovation as well. Mohon points out that such nostalgia is also cost-effective.

"Our goal is to repurpose as much as we can," he said. "How can we reuse the tin ceilings, how can we repurpose the wainscoting that's on the walls? What can we do? … The wood is in great condition—can we use this for a counter for the box office?"

Even so, the plans for renovation will be costly. They include restoring the fourth floor mansard and the complete construction of a new fly tower for dropping in scenery.

"We want to be a LEED building," Mohon added. "One of the goals is to put a rooftop deck, which has unobstructed views of Fort Adams and Jamestown, the bridge and of course the bay, absolutely stunning, on the fourth floor, so you're in a first-class facility looking at a first-class view in a world class destination. It's part of the packaging of Newport."

The hefty price tag, at last count hovering around $20 million, is perhaps the largest in the series of challenges ahead for Mohon, who said of the cost, "excellence is expensive and demands it."

He says that the demolition and "a little paint" he's planning to push through in the next 90 days would be part of the larger reconstruction anyway. But Mohon has details to take care of before moving forward with the long-term renovations.

"One thing we're doing right now is a philanthropic campaign study to see how much money can we really raise." Mohon admitted that "Newport's not very deep corporate."

Mohon must also begin the work of vetting the project bids that have come in so far.

"The bids were high," he said. "So we have to look at those estimates and really break them down. That process hasn't been done."

December holidays may be a good time for reopening the doors of the old House since both its 1867 and its 1929 reinventions launched successfully around the same time with holiday productions.

As for what we can expect come December, Mohon isn't exactly sure yet, but he's thinking probably a holiday film event, possibly something musical, and maybe even something reminiscent of the building's early years.

"I've got a woman who does a cabaret, and she has a few Christmas numbers, so there's a possibility of doing a cabaret act in here as well," Mohon mused. "In February, I would like to do a musical review, so we're doing live entertainment and music. That's the plan."