Sarasota Opera House facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Sarasota Opera House |
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Renovations to the exterior and interior in 2007-08
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| Former names | Edwards Theatre |
| General information | |
| Architectural style | Mediterranean Revival |
| Address | 61 North Pineapple Avenue |
| Country | United States |
| Coordinates | 27°20′12″N 82°32′38″W / 27.33667°N 82.54389°W |
| Opened | April 10, 1926 |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 3 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Roy A. Benjamin |
| Main contractor | G.A. Miller |
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Edwards Theatre
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| Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 420: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). | |
| MPS | Sarasota MRA |
| NRHP reference No. | 84003835 |
| Added to NRHP | March 22, 1984 |
The Sarasota Opera House is a special old building in Sarasota, Florida. It's used as an opera house today. When it first opened on April 10, 1926, it was called the Edwards Theatre.
A.B. Edwards, who was the first mayor of Sarasota, had the idea for this grand building. It had a three-story entrance with shops, offices, and even apartments. The main theater room had a big pipe organ for music. People were amazed by its beautiful design and fancy decorations.
The building was designed by Roy A. Benjamin. It was built in a style called Mediterranean Revival Style Architecture. The GA Miller Construction Company did the building work.
Today, the Sarasota Opera Association owns the building. This group runs the Sarasota Opera. The theater has 1,119 seats for people to enjoy shows.
A Look Back: Early Days
In the 1920s, the Edwards Theatre quickly became a very popular place for entertainment. Many famous performers came to the stage.
For example, Will Rogers performed there in 1927. The famous Ziegfeld Follies also put on a show in 1928.
A big movie called The Greatest Show on Earth had its first showing here in 1951. This movie was filmed in Sarasota. The stars of the movie, Charlton Heston and Dorothy Lamour, even came to the premiere!
Later, in 1956, Elvis Presley himself performed a concert at the theater.
Over the years, the theater's name changed. In December 1936, it became The Florida Theatre. A hurricane that same year damaged the pipe organ. The building was changed many times to look more modern, and it lost some of its original cool Art Deco style. It then became a movie theater full-time. But in 1973, it closed its doors.
Giving the Opera House a New Life
In the early 1970s, a group called the Asolo Opera Guild started putting on small opera shows in Sarasota. By 1974, they began to produce their own operas.
In 1979, this group bought the old Edwards Theatre for $150,000. The building needed a lot of work to fix it up. It also needed changes to be good for opera productions.
So, in 1982, the group started major renovations. Because of this work, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in March 1984. It was officially named the Sarasota Opera House.
Even more renovations happened between 2007 and 2008. These changes made the opera house even better.
The renovation cost $20 million. Workers completely redid the main auditorium, changing how the seats were arranged. They also made the public areas and the Opera Club on the second floor much bigger.
One exciting change was opening up the three-story atrium again. This atrium was part of the original building in 1926. It had been covered up by a ceiling and a chandelier that was used in the movie Gone with the Wind. A new skylight was added to the atrium.
In 2008, the Sarasota Opera reopened with a show called Rigoletto by Verdi. The seating was expanded to about 1,200. However, after the 2009-2010 season, some seats on the sides were removed to make more aisles. This left the theater with 1,119 seats, which it has today.
Images for kids
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Renovations to the exterior and interior in 2007-08
See also
In Spanish: Edwards Theater para niños
