Paula Simons: Roxy Theatre readies for encore with grants for design work
Thanks to new seed money from the federal government, Theatre Network is going ahead with plans to build a new Roxy Theatre on 124 Street.
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When the Roxy Theatre burned down three years ago, it left a gap on 124 Street that’s never been filled.
Sure, 124 Street is booming these days, filling up with all kinds of new restaurants and bakeries and spas and boutiques and bars, creative new independent businesses that are gradually replacing the old pawn shops and cash stores.
But when the Roxy was reduced to rubble, the street lost its entertainment element. For decades, the old 1938 movie house had been home to Theatre Network, one of the city’s most dynamic production companies. Theatre Network championed new Canadian work. It ran the NextFest festival for emerging young artists. And it brought street life, and restaurant patrons, to 124 Street.
“The Roxy’s been an important part of our community for 80 years,” says Jeff McLaren, executive director of the 124th Street Business Association. “The theatre has been the cultural heart of the street. Until the Roxy is back up and running, 124 will be missing some of its cultural soul.”
Now, Edmonton theatre lovers and Edmonton urban renewal fans have joint cause for celebration. The federal government announced Friday a $330,000 grant to Theatre Network to kick-start design work on a new Roxy Theatre on the old site, north of 107 Avenue.
The money, which was pledged by Edmonton Centre Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault, comes from the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund. The City of Edmonton has also ponied up $208,000.
Bradley Moss, Theatre Network’s artistic director, says the money will allow the theatre to do all the preliminary design and engineering work to get a new performance space ready to build. The theatre has commissioned Edmonton architecture firm Group2 to design the new facility.
“Theatres are boxes. But they’re special boxes,” says Moss.
Moss wants to build a 200-seat theatre, a smaller “black box” theatre with seating for 80 to 100 people, as well as a rehearsal hall. Those three spaces, he says, would provide the flexibility to host music and dance series, indoor farmers’ markets, community meetings and other events.
And while he’ll always miss the lovely, creaky, welcoming old Roxy, Moss admits it will be nice to have new washrooms — not to mention air conditioning. (It was too hot in the old Roxy, he says, to host summer events. Air conditioning would allow it to operate year-round.)
Of course, such a theatre would cost a good deal more than $538,000.
Moss expects the final budget to be closer to $10 million to $12 million.
“Luckily, we had a fire,” he says wryly.
That means they already have $2 million in insurance money in the bank. Another $890,000 in insurance will be delivered once construction starts.
After that, they’ll be asking the federal government, the province and the city for between $2.5 million and $3 million each. The rest they hope to raise from corporate and private donors.
Moss wants to see construction start by 2019 — and the theatre open as early as 2020. It’s an ambitious schedule. But Moss is motivated.
Since the fire, the Roxy has been renting space from the Edmonton Jazz Society, next to the Yardbird Suite on Gateway Boulevard. Being based in the Old Strathcona theatre district has had its advantages. But Moss is eager to get back to 124 Street. As he sees it, Edmonton’s theatre community is healthier when it’s not concentrated in the downtown and along Whyte Avenue; for him, 124 Street and its environs represent the third point in a theatre triangle.
That’s how Boissonault sees it, too.
“It’s a cultural icon in my own neighbourhood,” he says. “We knew the great value that Theatre Network and the Roxy bring to Westmount, to Inglewood, to the core, and across the city. The arts take us out of the digital world and back to the things that move us — and they’re also a great economic driver.”
As for the question of more federal funding, to get the theatre actually built? Boissonault says that hinges on getting the province to step up, too.
“We need all three levels of government to do these things.”
So, yes. We’re still a long ways from shovels in the ground, especially with the province pinching every penny. But Moss is undeterred.
“I really feel we have momentum now.”
And McLaren? He can’t wait.
“This is fantastic news,” he says. “Until Theatre Network is back, 124 Street won’t be itself.”
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