Main Street Theater Re-Opens Rice Village Home

Main Street Theater (MST) will soon re-open its completely renovated Rice Village home which has been under construction since March of 2015. This total overhaul of the facility is part of MST's $3.5 million Capital Campaign for the purchase and renovation of the space (2540 Times Blvd. Houston, 77005).

Now entering its 40th Anniversary Season, MST was founded in 1975 on Main Street in the Autry House but moved to the Times Blvd. space in Rice Village in 1982. After decades of constant use, and as MST has grown into a nationally-acclaimed organization, a renovation to bring the facility up to the standards of the work being created on stage was much needed. The renovation includes the addition of a second floor, a classroom/rehearsal space, a higher ceiling in the auditorium, an elevator, an expanded lobby, and additional restroom facilities, along with renovated dressing rooms and a green room backstage.

"I can hardly wait to share the new space with our audiences and our artists," says MST founder and current Executive Artistic Director Rebecca Greene Udden. "The space is very true to MST's identity in terms of intimacy, but it's such an upgrade and will give our artists the kind of space they deserve to work in and will make the experience of coming to MST so pleasant for audience members."

The new building also features a $100,000 array of solar technology generously donated by Green Mountain Energy's Sun Club, which will generate 32,340 KiloWatt Hours per year, or enough to power three houses for a year. MST is one of very few performing arts centers in the U.S. that are solar powered , putting MST in the company of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York and the Wells Fargo Center for the Performing Arts in Santa Rosa. "We're so excited to be Houston's professional, solar-powered theater!" says Udden.

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