WILMINGTON — Thalian Hall’s executive director has transformational plans in store for Wilmington’s 167-year-old theater.
READ MORE: Shane Fernando to exit Wilson Center for CEO position at Thalian Hall
Shane Fernando presented to local leaders about a multi-year renovation and expansion project of the historic building, iconic to Wilmington’s performing arts and city business. For 60 years, the nonprofit Thalian Hall Center for Performing Arts has contracted with the City of Wilmington to manage, operate, and maintain the historic structure; it was renewed last fall.
The city pays the nonprofit $168,095 a year for the management of Thalian Hall and $40,000 annually to operate the building.
In addition to hosting hundreds of arts performances a year, the city has been set up in Thalian Hall since it was built in 1858. But since making its $68-million purchase of the Skyline Center along Front Street a year-and-a-half ago, the city has been exiting Thalian to nest at its new city headquarters. Left behind are empty city hall offices and the last vestige is council chambers, which will transition to Skyline by summer or fall 2025.
Fernando has been planning on ways to readapt and upfit available areas, which will allot for more square footage and outreach to the community-at-large.
“It almost doubles our footprint,” Fernando told Port City Daily.
Hired in fall 2023 to take over from his mentor, Tony Rivenbark, who passed away in the year before, Fernando has worked with John Sawyer from Sawyer, Sherwood and Associates Architecture to develop ideas. Schematic designs are still being finalized with an official announcement and details of the changes announced fully to the community in the first part of the third quarter.
“It’s a massive project that touches every floor, every corner of the building — it’s not just an expansion or renovation. It’s a transformation,” Fernando said to PCD.
It was important for Fernando and Sawyer to inform city council first of its basic plans. According to the City of Wilmington, council will not need to vote on the Thalian Hall renovations; the city manager authorizes significant improvements.
Fernando touted Thalian Hall as the most utilized historic venue nationwide, estimating it hosts 700 events every year, and said it is expected to generate $729,000 in revenue with a $3.9-million proposed economic impact in 2025. Its transformation could grow events to 1,200 annually, bringing $1.4 million in revenue and having an $7-million economic impact to Wilmington’s economy, when accounting for expenditures.
“These new plans are a completion of Thalian Hall’s mission to make it a fully functional space for producing, for presenting the best of our community,” Fernando said.
Once the city’s move is complete, its new chambers will fill a need that has been warranted for a while: a 300-plus-seat theater. Thalian Hall’s ballroom has been utilized for parties, film screenings and more when not in use as council chambers.
Though there are numerous 100-seaters before it jumps to larger venues, a 300-seated venue is missing from the area. Thalian Hall’s main stage can hold up to 600, if configured appropriately, while UNCW’s Kenan Auditorium is around 1,000 and Wilson Center is 1,500.
Then there are outdoor venues such as Greenfield Lake Amphitheater (1,200) and Live Oak Bank Pavilion (7,000).
“We have very small and we have big,” Fernando said to PCD. “We need the Goldilocks space. And this one will be like no other in the American South.”
Fernando estimated roughly 40 or so community organizations are in need of places to set up across town. Thalian Association for Community Theater (separate from Thalian Hall Center for Performing Arts), Big Dawg Productions and Opera House Theater Company all rent Thalian’s main stage and Ruth and Bucky Stein theaters for programming.
In addition, Thalian Performing Arts also books 29 touring acts annually.
“But there are no more dates in the calendar,” Fernando told council. “If you go find another month to add to the year, we’ll gladly take it. Our existing renters also want to expand their programming.”
He added the 300-seat addition would fill in a year immediately if it went on the market today.
The council chambers and ballroom was once a performance hall in 1858 when Thalian Hall opened. Fernando called it “romantic” to renovate it back to its former glory.
The renovation plans don’t only include adding a 300-space theater, but also broadening development areas where artists can create. There will be rehearsal and workshop areas, as well as a recording studio, something Fernando found lacking community-wide. He imagines it available for local musicians but also for creators who need any content, such as for marketing purposes.
“Most theater companies now produce their own marketing videos — just like for ‘Cabaret,’” he said about the show he is directing and staging at Thalian Hall currently with Opera House Theater Company. “It would have been great to actually bring the orchestra together to record and put out the video, but we really don’t have a space to do that. And so this can be for creating social media content and commercials — it has a wide variety of applications.”
Fernando said the goal is to make Thalian Hall a community hub where artists are bolstered and have access to state-of-the-art capacity to create success. Once the executive director of UNCW’s Kenan Auditorium and thereafter Wilson Center, the Wilmington native has witnessed first-hand how national artists come to the area to workshop their pieces, yet local artists also have to leave to sustain a living.
“We have playwright clubs,” Fernando said. “We have musicals that have been developed and written over the last five years alone and new dance work that’s being developed. The problem is, they get to a certain point and they get stuck because there is no infrastructure here to continue the developmental process.”
Fernando said he wants Thalian Hall to serve as an incubator to keep local artists surviving and thriving in Wilmington — not just getting their start here and moving away because they have to.
He called it a testament to Wilmington’s draw as an artistic community when looking at the national talent that has come through to also develop content. Wilson Center hosted renowned actor B.D. Wong to workshop a new production with Opera House. Paul Taylor Dance Company and others have set up residencies with students and then performed for patrons.
Fernando also has the goal to make Thalian Hall accessible in other ways to everyone. Plans include expanding the lobby and adding in a coffee shop, to open daily to the public.
“If you have been to any of our coffee shops downtown during the day, they are filled with folks working remotely and it is hard to find a table,” Fernando told council Monday, “so I think it’s definitely an additional asset.”
As well, current city offices and corridors will be transformed into a music venue with a rotating stage and martini bar. The idea is to host local musicians seven days a week.
“How do we make sure our operations are built for the future?” Fernando asked rhetorically when assessing the potential for growth.
He called early mornings and late evenings “graveyard hours” that can be rolled into Thalian’s reach, as well as assessing more times for matinees. Fernando shared a recent uptick he has witnessed for weekday matinee performances.
“And not just from retirees,” he said. “Young professionals who have control over their own schedules because they’re working remotely. So if they want to take their family to a 2 p.m. show on a Wednesday, they have the freedom to do that. We are seeing a shift in demographics and able to reach a different demographic during those daytime hours.”
Thalian Hall’s main lobby will expand to accommodate more people. The goal is to enclose the outdoor area where patrons currently enter the hall for a performance. This will allow for space to install security screening areas and create roomier restrooms on the bottom floor for ladies (10 stalls rather than three).
The redesign also will help with flow as concessions activity will expand to four new areas.
Upstairs will be gutted and a multipurpose space will be installed. It will act as Thalian Hall Center for Performing Arts board room but will also be converted to rehearsal space or rented for corporate receptions, meetings and conferences.
There will be workstations for Thalian Hall staff installed as well, a major need, Fernando said, as they’re currently “in hallways and backstage” (he’s making his first hires, too, currently with creative director and technical director positions open).
An elevator will be re-established throughout all floors of the building and an unused historic staircase will be revitalized for patrons to use as well.
There are renovations expected to the loading dock areas, backstage, and adding closed-in scenic labs for people building set designs along with more dressing rooms.
Plus, seating will be added outdoors on the patio of the Third-Street-facing portico, wherein Thalian’s large columns are undergoing renovation.
“People can have a cocktail or coffee out there,” Fernando said.
The other portico facing Princess Street — where theater companies hosted shows outdoors in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic — likely will be renovated though that’s a future goal and not part of the first round of plans.
“It’s not conducive to being used right now,” he said. “Maybe we can reconfigure it to do midday concerts, evening concerts or theatrical events.”
A phased-in approach to construction is planned to ensure the hall remains operational through every stage. Fernando hopes to break ground by the end of the year but the capital campaign also has to launch; a committee already has formed.
Fernando told Port City Daily final numbers aren’t in on the costs, but he surmised it would take “a good number of millions.”
He plans to apply for state and federal grants and said “all things are on the table” when it comes to approaching the county, city or even the New Hanover Community Endowment.
This will be the ninth time Thalian Hall has undergone changes, the first when John Ford of the famed Ford Theater in D.C. purchased the hall in the late 1800s. The last time Thalian Hall was renovated was in the 2010s.
Fernando’s work at UNCW and Wilson Center has set him up to guide the hall’s next phase. Though he oversaw the Wilson Center’s construction from the ground up, he’s also had a front-row view of what Wilmington’s community of artists need to be on par with any national tour, whether in theater or music, dance or comedy.
“I think there are things operationally and functionally that we can take and bolster at Thalian but not for a major touring house mission, but to place our community organizations on the same type of stage and technology as a touring company,” he said. “That’s very important to me: Giving the best to our regional performers and organizations. We have a sophistication to our arts community and regional scene. And that just does not happen everywhere — so to be able to have the immunity behind them to encourage and support that, there’s a boldness about that.”
A formal announcement with more details about the designs will be released to the public in coming months.
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