Upstate theater partnership secures $900k for RBTL expansion and renovation 

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Leadership from Rochester Broadway Theatre League, as well as several state and local government officials, gathered on Friday at the Auditorium Theatre on E. Main St. to announce the state is investing $900,000 into the facility.

The money will go toward efforts to renovate and restore the nearly 100-year-old Art Deco building, which RBTL purchased in full earlier this year.

The recently passed state budget allocated $5 million to the Alive Downtowns! Upstate Historic Theatre Coalition, a group that includes 13 theaters in Geneva, Ithaca, Syracuse, Utica, Albany, and others.

Senator Jeremy Cooney said the 18-month-old coalition has member theaters from Jamestown to Poughkeepsie, and is a recognition of what he called "historic jewels in cities situated throughout the state."
“When you think about the state budget, there's a lot of different funding priorities and items,” Cooney said. “But this item is uniquely for upstate New York. There's not a counterpart for our friends in New York City."

RBTL received one of the largest sums from the fund, which ranged from the $95,000 for Reg Lenna Center for the Arts in Jamestown to $1,197,700 for Shea’s Performing Arts Center in Buffalo.

Alive Downtowns’ Denise Murphy McGraw said the coalition was founded as lingering pandemic restrictions on performing arts venues were lifted and they began reopening.

"We got into the game of advocacy because it was so important to ensure that we were able to keep programs alive and well in our downtowns,” she said. “And because these theaters are the economic engines that really do drive incredible amounts of economic opportunity and energy."

The state funds will support the restoration of decorative elements to the Auditorium Theatre, updates to smaller performance spaces within the building, and the purchase of new elevators to replace the slow, jumpy lift that currently serves the upper floors of the building.
One of the upper floor spaces is a theater dubbed the "Cathedral Room" and was the setting for Friday’s announcement, as the building’s main theater was set up for comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s performance that night and through the weekend.

That gave RBTL’s leadership the opportunity to show off the potential of one of its newly acquired spaces. The Cathedral Room, recently vacated by a church tenant that RBTL released from its lease, is aptly named given its decorative wooden beams and stained-glass details. It has a stage and wrap-around balcony seating, though no seating is currently installed in its large main space. RBTL leadership was unable to give an occupancy estimation for the space.

After renovations, there is much potential for the spaces to be used by smaller arts groups in partnership with RBTL, officials said.

Assemblymember Harry Bronson said the theater’s economic impact is crucial to small businesses such as the restaurants, cafés, and shops in the adjacent Neighborhood of the Arts.

And Senator Cooney joked that contrary to what his colleagues in New York City think, upstate New York is more than agriculture and barns — the cultural assets in Rochester draw people from all over.

“We also have world-class theater and shows that come up from downstate to our region,” he said. "The difference is that we can get better seats for half the price.”

While that may be true, RBTL’s new ticketing system uses dynamic pricing—which allows it to earn more per seat when a show is in hot demand, much like booking flights or buying concert tour tickets—and stands to price some out of accessing more popular shows. That includes residents who live in the neighborhood immediately surrounding the theater, which has a median income of $22,500.
RBTL’s Executive Vice President Linda Glosser said that maintaining RBTL's opportunities for accessible cultural enrichment was “a priority.”

In addition to renovations to the building and facilities, she said the state funds will help strengthen RBTL’s arts education programs with the Rochester City School District and its efforts to increase community access to the arts.

“RBTL also supplements ticket prices for those who can't necessarily always afford—we do some scholarship opportunities,” Glosser said. “And with more, we can do more. So, this funding will help with some of those objectives.”

Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” will be staged at the Auditorium Theatre from June 13-18, and tickets start at $50. For more details, visit rbtl.org.

Rebecca Rafferty is an arts writer for CITY. She can be reached at [email protected].