Round House Theatre, which for more than ten years has managed the 150-seat black
box theater on Silver Spring’s Colesville Road, will end its management of the space
in 2014, the company announced today. The news came just as
Mayor Gray announced that I.M.P., promoters and operators of the 9:30 Club and Merriweather Post
Pavilion, had been chosen as the winning bid to take over the historic Lincoln Theatre
on U Street.
The Lincoln Theatre has offered performances only sporadically in recent years, despite
having a storied history since it was built in 1922. The venue has hosted Duke Ellington,
Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Nat King Cole, and many more luminaries of the jazz
age, and was once the venue for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s birthday party. It will now
be another jewel in the crown of local promoter and I.M.P. chairman
Seth Hurwitz. “It’s an honor and a thrill to be entrusted to bringing new life to such a wonderful
old theater,” Hurwitz said in a statement. “Although we have been doing this for 33
years, we have added very few venues in our family roster. But this one we couldn’t
pass up. The Lincoln is just too cool not to.”
The news from Round House Theatre is more contentious: Although the company had many
plans for its smaller space, and was mentioned as a key part of the company’s mission
when new artistic director
Ryan Rilette took over in 2012, the Silver Spring theater is owned by Montgomery County, which
was approached by a consortium of small arts groups concerned they would no longer
be able to use the space. The county announced its intention to consider other management
models when Round House’s contract came up for renewal in 2014.
“We have spent the last six months making the case for why the public is best served
by continued Round House management of the space. This has already taken vital time
away from mission-related work,” said a statement issued by Round House. “We cannot
afford to spend another year defending our management of the black box.” It will continue
to produce plays as normal in its 400-seat space in Bethesda. This comes in a month
when both Woolly Mammoth and Keegan Theatre have announced the purchases of the theaters
they currently operate.
What this means for Forum Theatre, Happenstance Theater, and other small companies
that produce plays at Round House Silver Spring, is currently uncertain. We’ve reached
out for comment and will update as we hear more.
