It is an anxious time right now for Boston theater lovers and arts advocates, with word that Emerson College is seriously looking at turning the 1,700-seat Colonial Theatre into a student dining center with a more limited performance space that would no longer host Broadway-style shows.
This came the same week that Boston University announced it is ending its 33-year sponsorship of the Huntington Theatre and putting the building up for sale in two years. Meanwhile, the Wang and Shubert Theatres are hunting for new sponsors, too.
New York-based Citigroup is abandoning its backing for what's called the Citi Center for the Performing Arts after its efforts to build a local consumer banking business in Boston flopped, and Citi decided to shutter its local branches next year and end the local theatre sponsorships.
"I am concerned, deeply concerned, because all three are cultural anchors in cultural districts," Stephen Baird of Community Arts Advocates in Jamaica Plain said in an interview Friday afternoon.
Baird worries about so much of Boston's theatre scene losing its connection to students – its future audiences – and so many stages simultaneously competing for sponsor dollars.
"All these institutions are struggling to keep these buildings alive, so it's not going to be an easy trip to raise additional funding," Baird said.
Mayor Marty Walsh said late Friday he'd like to offer what assistance he can negotiating sponsors and backers to assure a strong future for the Huntington, Shubert, and Wang.
Massachusetts
The latest news from around the state
"I think to some degree we can help," Walsh said.
Asked whether he's worried about the future vibrancy of Boston's theatre sector, Walsh said, "You do get concerned. We have an arts and culture plan moving forward, and part of that arts and culture plan is the theatre. We need to make sure that we have a robust theatre district in the city, so that does concern me."
With videographer Tony Sabato
