While the Royal George Theatre is being prepared for the 2024 season of productions, a major overhaul that has been in the works for years is expected to begin when the final curtain closes at the end of the year.
Issues with its clay foundation dissolving have come to a head — it was built as temporary — and “must be addressed after the end of this season,” says executive director Tim Jennings.
“We lost several sold-out shows in 2023 to water permeation of the foundation and other facility issues that cause safety concerns, and simply can not be addressed with temporary solutions any longer.”
“The specifics of what we are going to do are not fully decided,” he continued, “so it would be premature to say much else, other than if we are going to address the foundation issues, we see opportunity to address a lot of other issues like accessibility, carbon footprint, washrooms, etc. at the same time.”
After 20-plus years of ongoing issues, “mitigation has simply become too expensive and seems no longer effective.”
The Queen Street theatre was built in 1915 on the site of a blacksmith shop for the entertainment of troops garrisoned in the town of Niagara-
on-the-Lake during the First World War, and later became a movie house, and then an intimate setting for Shaw plays.
On stage this year at the historic theatre will be what artistic director Tim Carroll calls a “mouthwatering Royal George season,” with Agatha Christie’s best murder mystery, Witness for the Prosecution, a Shaw favourite in Candida, and the evergreen classic The Secret Garden. “These are all shows we expect to sell like hot cakes,” he says.
