General Information

The Briggs Opera House is a 245-seat, semi-thrust theater located in historic downtown White River Junction, Vermont. The intimate space is the perfect location for everything ranging from one-person acoustic concerts to fully staged theatrical productions. The theater is also equipped for any season with full heating and air-conditioning. Modern technology brings the stage alive with a complete set of theater lights, a 24-channel dimmer board with timers, and a complete playback sound system including CD and DAT capabilities. The backstage area is equipped with bathroom facilities, green room, intercom system, and six dresssing rooms to accommodate 12-20 performers comfortably. For the audience, the Opera House includes a separate lobby with concession services available, as well as a complete on-site computerized box office ready to accommodate reserved seating and credit card sales. The Briggs Opera House is fully accessible.

History of The Briggs Opera House

The Briggs Opera House is located in the Gates-Briggs Building in the center of White River Junction, VT. The building was developed by Mae Gates in 1890 as the Gates Building. As such, the "Opera House" portion of the building was named the Gates Opera House.

The Gates Opera House was never actually an opera house with a raked floor and corresponding stage, like vaudeville or burlesque-house architecture. Rather, it was a multi-purpose auditorium with a flat floor of about 6,000 square feet, a raised stage with proscenium arch across the west end, and a balcony high above the east end.

For the first 50 years or so of its existence, the Gates Opera House served as a regional civic center, accessible to Vermont and New Hampshire residents in all four directions of the compass by rail. Consequently, it was used for trade shows, exhibitions, community theater, political banquets, boxing matches, basketball games, graduations and concerts. Finally, during World War II, it was used as a place to provide shelter and services to armed forces personnel.

During this first half-century, it is reported that Teddy Roosevelt was treated to a gala banquet here. The Hartford High School basketball team, using it as their home court, enjoyed a championship season in 1928-29. The team won New England honors and was invited to the National Tournament in Chicago, to which they traveled by rail. The team was dominated by Italian-Americans who clearly had the talent and the drive to succeed but were not blessed with any height advantage. The tallest player was barely over six feet, and the rest definitely under. Subsequently, Hartford teams in all sports were named the Hartford Midgets. This moniker struck until the late 1960s.

Following World War II, the Gates Opera House fell into disuse and neglect. The high school connection had begun dwindling in 1935 when Hartford High School constructed of a gym of its own with the help of the WPA. By the early 1950s the Gates Opera House was totally closed and the staircase to the backstage area bricked off. During that time, the Main Street retail space of the building was experiencing prosperity with the presence of the J.J. Newberry Company department store. Newberry's served the region as the biggest accessible retail space for miles around, with six cash register stations and a snack bar. Expansion plans called for a staircase to be built up from the Main Street level into the Opera House area. This resulted in the addition of a dropped ceiling in the Opera House and the elimination of both the stage and the balcony.

The stage was completely removed and made into an employee lunch room, wash rooms and offices. Today, this space is the Green Room and actors' dressing rooms. Remnants of the balcony structure are now a storage mezzanine which provides access across the suspended ceiling.

The ownership of the Gates Building transferred to Fredrick and Margaret "Bonnie" Briggs in 1972 from a Boston family who had owned buildings in Newberry's stores as anchor tenants. The Briggs family commenced restoration with elevator service and central air conditioning, with an eye toward the future use of the Opera House space.

The Newberry's use of the Opera House continued until approximately 1979, when competing national discount chains in the region left it a neighborhood department store. The main staircase was removed, and the retail floor in the Opera House was left vacant and unused. At the time, the Upper Valley experienced the arrival of a summer stock theater company called the Green Mountain Guild, produced by Robert and Marjorie O'Neil-Butler, with rotating casts performing plays and musicals in Stowe, Killington, Mount Snow and Woodstock. They relocated their Woodstock operation to Quechee and then to the Gates Opera House, calling it the Junction Playhouse. The facility was merely a large rectangular room with seating on three sides of a square "stage" fashioned from painted tiles on the floor. Lights were made of Number Ten cans painted black. Seating was in the form of folding wooden chairs. They were placed on risers extending up three levels on the three sides of the stage. This stage, like its predecessor, faced the audience to the east. It is believed that during the Green Mountain Guild's early years in Vermont, one of its up-and-coming summer stock actresses was Meryl Streep.

The O'Neil-Butlers later shifted their summer program to Killington. Their other Vermont locations were discontinued by the 1980s. The Green Mountain Guild continued production in White River Junction through the summer of 1985.

In February of 1985, the Hotel Coolidge, in collaboration with the White River Junction Chamber of Commerce, produced a concert by the Butch Thompson Trio of National Public Radio's "A Prairie Home Companion." Attendance was standing room only, with 460 people in a Green Mountain Guild arena that was modified to hold more floor seating. This event inspired a series of musical programs called the River City Revue, which led to the formation of the River City Arts Forum as a local vehicle for expanding arts events and experiences in the Town of Hartford. The Opera House lay idle but otherwise preserved for future artistic uses.

In the summer of 1987 Stephen Legawiecz and Steven Leon visited White River Junction on the way to the Champlain Shakespeare Festival in Burlington and indicated interest in starting a theater company in the Upper Valley. Fred Briggs, Legawiecz and Leon agreed to a one-season rental arrangement for the summer of 1988. In May of 1998, a modified thrust stage with accompanying risers for seats and professional rented lighting were added to the space.

The White River Theater Festival began operation in the summer of 1988; Fred Briggs provided seating in the form of folding chairs brought to the Upper Valley for Dartmouth's graduation. The White River Theater Festival continued until 1995, commissioned by the non-profit River City Arts. The folding chairs were replaced with theater seats salvaged from a Stowe movie theater by Fred Briggs. Briggs also installed central heating and air conditioning solely for the Opera House and provided the financing for the acquisition of a complete set of lights and controls. Just before the centennial of the Gates Building in 1990, River City Arts renamed the retrofitted space in honor of its benefactor, Fred Briggs, as the Briggs Opera House.

In 1997, Brooke Wetzel, founding Artistic Director of Northern Stage, used the Opera House as a location for the film Groupies, starring Ally Sheedy. Noting that the Opera House was empty, and lacking a regular facility for her theatrical productions, she entered into negotiations with the Briggs family. Northern Stage produced the musical revue Cole! in the spring of 1997. A full fall season followed from September to December. Northern Stage quickly built a large audience base, culminating in the sell-out production of Annie in December 1998. Programming-and audiences-continue to build. Northern Stage has now produced over 25 shows, including the American Premiere of The Strange Passenger in 1997, the New England Premiere of The Beauty Queen of Leenane in 1998 and the New England Premiere of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit in the spring of 2000, starring Lisa Harrow, who had just completed the acclaimed New York run of the production.

With audiences growing annually, Northern Stage continues to provide an outlet for challenging and exciting works.