The Sara Belle and Neil November Theatre
(formerly the Empire Theatre)
From Richmond.com:
Neil and Sara Belle November, long-standing community leaders and Richmond philanthropists, are giving $2 million to Barksdale Theatre /Theatre IV, Central Virginia’s resident professional theater company.
In recognition of the gift, the 100-year-old Empire Theatre will begin its second century as an entertainment venue with a new name, the “Sara Belle and Neil November Theatre” in January 2012. This will be the first and only theatre to bear the names of both husband and wife.
The gift is “the largest gift ever made by an individual to a Richmond-based nonprofit producing theater, and one of only two gifts of this size made by individuals to any nonprofit theater in Virginia,” according to Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones.
Click for video from WTVR 6:
From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
At the Empire, the couple's gift is expected to fund the building façade restoration, as well as provide endowment support and kick off a capital fundraising campaign that's tentatively estimated at $12 million to $14 million.
Site improvements started in September and are scheduled to be finished by the end of this year.
The Empire's facelift is the latest investment in a stretch of Broad that is being revitalized with restaurants, apartments, galleries and the monthly First Fridays Art Walk. The area also is part of the proposed Historic Broad Street Arts District, which is aimed at spurring additional arts-related development and investment.
Jones said the restoration will return the theater's Neo-classical grandeur as reflected in an artist's rendering. The image "reminds us of the true jewel that the Empire has been and still is today," Jones said. "When I look at that and think of what I want Broad Street to look like, I think that we're well on our way."
The Empire opened Dec. 25, 1911, at a gateway into the Jackson Ward neighborhood, and it was Richmond's first theater to be built specifically to house racially mixed audiences. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the Empire was known as The Booker T., and Jones recalled visiting with "one of the few dates I had" while a student at Virginia Union University.
From Style Weekly:
“For decades, from the 1930s through the 1960s, this theater was called the Booker T,” Jones told the group. “And I remember as a college student, on one of the few dates that I had, I came to the Booker T.”
Phil Whiteway, managing director of Theatre IV and the Barksdale Theatre, says the Novembers’ gift will go toward capital improvements and the theater’s endowment. The marquee that went up last week cost approximately $150,000, Whiteway says, and overall facade renovations will cost as much as $1 million. That work is expected to be complete by early next year, Whiteway says. An ensuing capital campaign, with a goal of between $12 million and $14 million, has yet to officially launch.
The theater, which became part of Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” set late last week, first opened on Christmas Day in 1911.
From NBC 12:
Barksdale Theatre/Theatre IV brings an annual economic impact of millions of dollars and hundreds of full time equivalent jobs to the region.
With the 100th Anniversary of The Empire Theatre, the company will be given a gift that will launch it into the next century and lead the way for future downtown projects.