THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 22, 1997 TAG: 9702210051
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 70 lines
EFFORTS CONTINUE to restore Norfolk's own tribute to Crispus Attucks - the historic Attucks Theatre on Church Street.
``The people who really want to get this project under way are a broad mix. They also cross religious lines, racial lines and economic lines. The community is really getting behind it,'' said the Rev. Joseph N. Green Jr., president of the non-profit Crispus Attucks Cultural Center Inc.
The Attucks, on Church Street between Virginia Beach Boulevard and Princess Anne Road, once was the cultural heart of the region's black population. In its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, the theater drew hundreds of people a day, packing an auditorium that was dominated by a huge curtain depicting the death of Crispus Attucks in the pre-Revolutionary War's Boston Massacre.
A historic landmark, the Attucks Theatre is the oldest American playhouse to be financed, designed, constructed and operated by African Americans, according to the National Register of Historic Places. It opened in 1919 and featured live theater and concerts and then movies until 1953, when it was converted to a men's apparel store.
The Attucks once drew top-name national entertainers, including Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Nat King Cole, Sam Cook, Duke Ellington and Red Foxx.
Advocates have targeted the year 2000 for reopening the long-empty theater as a cultural arts center. Plans prepared by the Norfolk-based Livas Group of architects and designers feature a refurbished 600-seat auditorium, offices for cultural groups and space for displaying paintings, sculpture and other fine arts.
The idea for renovating the Attucks dates to the mid-1970s. However, Green, a former Norfolk vice mayor, believes the day of the Attucks revival finally is at hand.
``There have been a lot of projects we undertook in Norfolk. They needed to come in order - for instance, raising the money for the Martin Luther King monument,'' Green said. ``But now that other things are under way, we can move forward with the Attucks.''
Green and several other board members say their excitement and community interest in the project is at an all-time high.
Renovation and the addition of one new wing will cost about $4.2 million. Half of that - $2.1 million - must be raised by the nonprofit board; the city of Norfolk has promised a matching grant.
So far, the board has raised or received firm pledges for more than $600,000, said Denise Christian, project manager.
Green credits board member Andrew S. Fine, a Virginia Beach developer, with opening new doors to community resources, including foundations and private sources. ``He's brought a tenacity to the project that I've never seen,'' Green said.
Christian describes the current fund-raising effort as the ``quiet phase'' but promises that the board will unfurl a massive public campaign as the pledge level nears $1 million.
Green hopes renovations will start when the $2.1 million goal gets in sight. ``Then we'll ask the city to put up its part and get it under way, the same way they did for the Harrison Opera House and other projects,'' he said.
Plans envision the Attucks as hosting numerous cultural and educational events, and drawing tourists from across the country. ``I hope we can have a summer theater of national black theatrical productions,'' Green said. ``We'd invite the world, invite the country, anyway. There are just so many possibilities.'' MEMO: For more information about the Attucks Theatre, call Denise
Christian, 623-1111.
[For a related story, see page E1 of THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT for this date.] ILLUSTRATION: IAN MARTIN / The Virginian-Pilot
The Crispus Attucks Theater on Norfolk's Church Street as it would
appear after renovation.