Let the shows begin

This fall, North Shore Music Theatre will begin performances in the auditorium at the former Briscoe school

The last time I watched a performance at Briscoe was a decade ago, when my daughter sang in the eighth-grade chorus.

As Rick Pitino once said about Larry Bird, Elizabeth Leighton is not walking through that door again. But shows will soon be returning to the former Briscoe school building.

North Shore Music Theatre has signed a letter of intent to lease the auditorium at Briscoe, which has been transformed into Beverly Village for Living & the Arts, a senior housing community with 85 affordable apartments and six live/work artist studios.

NSMT owner Bill Hanney and chief operating officer Karen Nascembeni confirmed the deal to me this week at the ribbon-cutting for Beverly Village (which actually opened a few months ago).

Karen Nascembeni and Bill Hanney in the auditorium at the former Briscoe school.

Hanney and Nascembeni are quite the dynamic duo. Tonight they’re off to Martha’s Vineyard to prepare for the July 5 opening of “The Shark is Broken,” which ran at North Shore Music Theatre in May, then will be heading to London as producers on “Alice in Wonderland” in the West End.

But they’re just as excited about the possibilities down the street at the former Briscoe. The building, which served as a school for almost 100 years, has been beautifully transformed into senior apartments. At the ribbon-cutting, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and other officials praised it as a shining example of how to create much-needed housing. The city sold the building to Harborlight Homes and Beacon Communities in 2019 with the stipulation that it be preserved, and the project got funding from the state, the city and several other sources.

The idea from the beginning was that the new owners would partner with North Shore Music Theatre to operate the auditorium as a community theater. Generations of students might remember it for its cracked seats and boring assemblies, but it’s a beautiful space, built in the same style as Symphony Hall in Boston. I sat in those cracked seats many times over the years. When I went there this week, the seats on the first floor had all been replaced.

Hanney, who saved North Shore Music Theatre when he bought it out of bankruptcy in 2010, and Nascembeni said the Briscoe auditorium will give them a second space to put on shows and performances that they otherwise wouldn’t have time for at NSMT with its busy schedule of musicals.

“We have so many plans and ideas in motion,” Hanney told me about how to use the new space. “This is something different for us.”

Nascembeni said one of the biggest benefits of using Briscoe will be to provide more chances for the kids in NSMT’s education program to perform their shows. The theater can also use the Briscoe stage as a place to perform new works and smaller shows that might not be right for the music theater, which has 1,500 seats.

There are many other possibilities. Community theater, classical music and chamber music groups could rent the space. There could be a jazz series, a blues series, a speaker series. Nascembeni said it could even be used for weddings.

“It’s going to be lit a lot,” Nascembeni said.

“The theater hates only one light — the ghost light that means nothing is happening,” Hanney said.

Hanney and Nascembeni said they won’t be opening the balcony for performances, because it would interfere with the people who live in the building. But the nearly 442-seat main floor gives them plenty of space for what they plan to do.

There’s still more work to do. The auditorium needs a new sound system and lights. Hanney said it could use carpets in the aisles and new curtains to absorb sound and improve the acoustics. Concession stands and a box office will be set up in the lobby. A couple of storage rooms are being transformed into dressing rooms, and the bathrooms have been upgraded to meet the Actors’ Equity Association standards.

Hanney and Nascembeni said they hope to start putting on shows in the fall. Residents of Beverly Village have already been asking about working as ushers.