In its capacity as a meeting and convention venue, the 122-year-old Tarrytown Music Hall is returning to its roots, albeit with a computerized sound and light system that would have been lacking when it was built.
The oldest surviving theater in Westchester County began its life with a multipurpose mission, according to Bjorn Olsson, the Main Street theater”™s executive director.
“It was a true hall,” Olsson says. “Everything from vaudeville to flower shows to horse competitions and roller-skating.”
Olsson says The Business Council of Westchester has used the theater for its Business After Business event for 150 people and the Young Professional Advisory Committee of the Westchester County Association has also held forth there where the ghosts of Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin still cavort today during live-music silent film events.
There are, to be sure, myriad reasons beyond business needs to visit the music hall: movies, concerts, plays, even a children”™s theater workshop, Random Farms Kids”™ Theater, that draw between 75,000 and 100,000 people per year. Once inside, patrons cross its sloped lobby to park themselves in seats with real, honest-to-goodness legroom of the sort alien to today”™s multiplexes.
Ten percent of the hall”™s customers come from Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow and 10 percent from New York City. The remaining 80 percent come from throughout the region, all of which makes the architectural gem a marquee destination in the literal sense of the term.
“We”™re our own little theater district,” says Olsson, noting the theater pumps between $700,000 and $1 million annually into the local restaurant economy as part of the age-old equation: dinner and a show.
For meetings, the theater boasts two screens: its main movie screen and a smaller one for more intimate presentations. The 843-seat theater will arrange for catered meals in its first- and second-floor lobbies, or attendees can arrange for their own food.
“If you want to do a little more ”“ or something a little different ”“ the theater offers more than the auditorium back at the company,” Olsson says. “The stage is great for things like product launches. Or, a seminar that attracts more people than you have space for at your own company, this could be an option.”
Olsson, 42, is a theater person himself, singing the role of Raoul in “Phantom of the Opera” in Europe. He sings with professional surety as he walks among the theater”™s pitch-perfect acoustics and easily dips into the jargon of the creative world in urging business to consider the theater for events, urging corporate planners: “Think outside the box. Incorporate a live performance. For us, that”™s a piece of cake.”
Theater manager Karina Ringeisen also possesses theatrical bona fides. She was a dancer and, admitting to being in her 30s, still moves with the weightless grace of a terpsichorean.
“It”™s interesting to have been in the theater and now to be on the other side,” Ringeisen says. Both she and Olsson have been with the music hall for five years.
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Ringeisen began work in August on a grant-funded historic-structures report, using money totaling $70,000 to $100,000 for her work.
Change is a given for a theater that began its life in the world of gaslight. Ringeisen estimates bringing the theater to where she would like to see it will cost between $5 million and $20 million. For $5 million, she could effectively polish the existing facility, though, in truth, it”™s already as beautiful as a theater has a right to be. For $20 million, she could engage in a wish list that includes expansion. The plans will await her final report.
“It”™s kind of like putting a puzzle together,” she says. “We won”™t know until the study is done which layers we need to keep in place and where. We want to respect the theater while we improve it.” The final look is expected to reflect the 1930s and ”™40s, underpinned by modern amenities.
Meantime, with the help of a cadre of dedicated volunteers and technical director Newell Kring, the shows, the movies and the conventions go on.
The Web site is www.tarrytownmusichall.org. The phone number is (914) 631-3390.
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