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Talia Soares

Journalist / Writer

Mar 1, 2017

Talia Soares

Journalist / Writer

Ward’s Curtains Ready to rise by Summer5 min read

Executive member of the Ward Theatre Foundation Jonathan Greenland , is the most optimistic he has been about restoration efforts since being part of the team.

Following a meet-and-greet at the North Parade, downtown Kingston theatre on Wednesday morning, he said things are finally looking up. He expects that with the money now being provided to fix important features, like the air conditioning, it will at least be operational by summer.

Greenland told The Gleaner “For years, it felt like pushing a rock up a hill; but now it feels like we’re pushing it down a hill because we have so many people now who are saying, ‘I’ve heard enough of this, we’re not gonna let the Ward Theatre just fall to pieces, so we’re going to do our part’. It’s not just me or the foundation. It is a significant number of people, a whole community who are now on board.”

“For so long, we just didn’t get that. People would talk about it, but it just didn’t come through. Luckily, we’ve got the mayor and the mayor has taken it up and said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna do it’.”

Senator Delroy Williams told The Gleaner that the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) will be spending on renovations to get the theatre “up and running.

“You can’t really build a city without a theatre and without the arts, so it is imperative that we repair the place,” Williams said. He explained that the KSAC and Ministry of Tourism have given the project new energy. “The Ministry of Tourism just committed $10 million as part of the restorations, and I have been in touch with the minister of culture and she has also committed a sum of money to deal primarily with the air-conditioning system. The immediate plan is to get the theatre operational and the budget for that is $40-$50 million. From there, we will think about getting it to be a first-class theatre.”

The Ward Theatre, which was donated to the city of Kingston by Colonel C.J. Ward in 1912, was declared a national monument in January 2000.

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