SevenVenues March 2019 SevenVenues Newsletter - Spring | Page 8

8 SEVEN BEHIND THE SCENES SPACES (CON’T.) “THE GYM” The Municipal Auditorium at East 9th and Granby Streets was designed by Norfolk architect Clarence Neff and built during World War II, a result of the overwhelming military development that had doubled the city’s population between 1938 and 1941. Neff’s design for the Auditorium, in a style called “streamlined moderne,” contained a 3000- seat indoor arena and a separate 1800 seat theater—the Center Theater. Finished in May of 1943, the Auditorium hosted USO dances and shows, boxing matches, wrestling matches and concerts, from young Elvis to the Carter Sisters. By 1971, the newer and larger Scope Arena opened, and in 1974 a group of community leaders, led by Edythe Harrison, founded the Virginia Opera, with the Center Theater as home. The Center Theater received a ten-million-dollar renovation in 1993 that featured a dynamic new facade, a three-story grand lobby with floor to ceiling windows, glittering chandeliers, and an elegant staircase to the grand foyer and balcony levels. Renamed the Harrison Opera House, the Virginia Opera continues on as a primary tenant. The Arena portion of the former Municipal Auditorium (now commonly referred to by staff as “the gym”) is now used by the production department of the Virginia Opera as storage and a staging and construction area for sets.