MOUNT VERNON – After 20 years of renovation and restoration, the wait is over.
The Woodward Opera House will host its first performance in nearly a century next month, Knox Partnership for Arts and Culture Managing Director Danny Gum announced Wednesday. KPAC is in charge of organizing performances and leasing out venues on the second, third and fourth floors of the facility.
The first show in the newly renovated main opera house, which seats 500 people, will be “David Holt & Josh Goforth: ‘Carolina Heroes’” on Jan. 24 at 7 p.m. The opera house’s official ‘grand opening’ will take place on Feb. 9, when Grammy-award winning bluegrass singer Kathy Mattea takes center stage.
Pat Crow, project manager for the Woodward Development Corporation (which has spearheaded restoration efforts), said the final touches are now being put on the property. This includes painting, audio/visual technology setup, theater lighting installation and things of that nature.
Crow said there is a series of inspections that the building will need to pass before the official completion of the project, but “from a pure construction perspective, we are approaching completion within the next few weeks.”
“It’s been a long road,” Crow said Wednesday. “I got involved in this project 25 years ago. It’s been more than a marathon.”
Crow began officially working on the building in 1998. It is a four-floor, approximately 65,000-square foot facility on the southwest corner of S. Main St. and Vine St. in downtown Mount Vernon. Crow estimates $21 million has been put into renovations over the last two decades. Woodward Development Corporation has received roughly $11 million in state tax credits, Crow said.
Now, in less than a month, live performances will be back in the theater.
“It’s very exciting for us as KPAC to get the word out and let the public know that it’s finally here,” Gum said. “After putting up with having sidewalks closed and roads closed, all their patience during the construction process is finally paying off.”
While elements of the first floor of the building, which will contain Stein Brewing Company and Harvest Market storefronts, are still in progress, the upper three floors are nearing completion from an entertainment perspective.
The second floor houses a recital hall, which can hold 140 people. The third and fourth floors contain the main opera house, which was first used for a lecture on electricity in 1851, according to The Woodward’s website. The fourth floor also contains the “Black Box,” another performance venue that can seat 150 people.
All three venues can not only be used for performance and education, but also for banquets or meetings. All can be outfitted with chairs and tables, and portable stages are available for the two smaller venues. Sound equipment, lighting and audio/visual technology are all provided and in-place, Gum said.
Gum added that the Woodward’s entertainment complex boasts “one of the best sound systems in the midwest."
The last known theater performance at The Woodward occurred on Feb. 22, 1921 (it was a lecture on the new uses of technology, which was ironically the same theme as the first performance in 1851). After Dr. Ebenezer Woodward constructed the building in the mid-1800s, the theater hosted lectures, motion picture showings, musicians, vaudeville, minstrel shows and other traveling acts.
The Woodward theater hosted the first known motion picture showing in Knox County in 1897, according to the opera house’s website. The theater also hosted some of the initial renditions of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” back in the 1850s, just two years after the book’s publication.
According to The Woodward’s website, the opera house was closed in 1921 due to “competition from other local theatrical and motion picture venues.” The opera house is known to this day as America's oldest authentic 19th century theater still standing.
Crow and the Woodward Development Corporation’s mission was to restore the opera house to its original state, but with modern technological amenities.
The goal is to make the facility an “asset-producing part of the community,” Crow said. This means that, by drawing people in from outside Knox County to see performances or utilize the facility’s state-of-the-art meeting/event venues, the building will bring money into the community and thereby stimulate the local economy.
“If a consumer comes in here and they go in the brewery or they go to an art thing upstairs or they come to a conference, that money they spend in this community is money that was not here yesterday,” Crow said in October at Stein Brewing Company’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.
"We want to bring enough people into this community, through tourism and other aspects, to create economic development – not just for the downtown, but also the whole community."
Gum agreed that once all parts of the building are rolling, the result should be a sizeable economic boost for the community.
“The Woodward being located in downtown Mount Vernon, it’s very exciting for the downtown merchants and hotels,” Gum said. “It’s really going to be an economic stimulus for the area in general.”
Local schools will benefit from the opera house’s opening as well, Gum said. He hopes to have performers travel to different schools for events and educational opportunities in between shows.
Gum also plans on bringing 'TED Talks,' a nationally known lecture series with the motto “ideas worth spreading,” to The Woodward.
“That’s just one example of the many ideas that we have going forward,” Gum said Wednesday.
The Woodward Opera House launched its new website last week, which holds current and historical information about the venue and also provides links for ticket sales. With less than a month until the restored opera house’s first show, Gum said the anticipation – both within KPAC and the public – is real.
“I know that there’s a lot of excitement in the community. You know, they’ve waited on this for a long time and there is a lot of excitement,” Gum said. “Some people still don’t believe it’s happening.”
Who’s performing
Jan. 24: David Holt and Josh Goforth
Holt is a four-time Grammy-award winning musician and Goforth is a Grammy nominee. The two will perform an acoustic concert with an educational twist. It will feature an array of unique and unconventional acoustic instruments made in the Appalachian hills, Gum said.
“Both are very, very accomplished musicians and David has spent these last 30-some years collecting odd musical instruments made in the Appalachian hills and hollers,” Gum said. “These aren’t instruments that you would find at a music store.”
The two will play the instruments, some of which are made from sticks, barbed wire and plastic bags, and explain their origin – who made the instrument, where they came from, what kind of life they had and what kind of music they played.
Feb. 9: Kathy Mattea
Mattea has received two Grammys and four CMA awards, while recording four Billboard No. 1 country singles since she began her bluegrass career in 1984.
Her No. 1 singles include "Goin' Gone,” "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses,” "Come from the Heart" and "Burnin' Old Memories.” She has released 14 studio albums, two Christmas albums and one greatest hits album.
Mattea’s show at The Woodward will be the 12th of 22 stops on her international tour, which begins in Indiana on Jan. 12. The tour will include shows in Chicago, Minneapolis, United Kingdom, Ireland, Georgia, Florida, California and Maine. Mattea will perform five shows overseas, the last being in London, before coming to Mount Vernon.
Future performances
Feb. 23: Fathers Daze with Bil Lepp, Don White, and Bill Harley
March 2: Buffalo Wabs and 6 Miles to Nellie
March 16: Livingston Taylor
April 6: Suzy Boggus
May 3: Michael Reno Harrell
May 4: Memories of The Rat Pack
Sept. 5: Doug Stone
For more information on show dates and tickets, click here for the Woodward Opera House’s website.
