Published: June 29, 2007 12:42 pm      

STAGE SHUFFLE: Theater guild leaves Riviera, signs on with Cardinal O'Hara

The Niagara Regional Theatre Guild will soon be settling into its new home, but it isn’t in Niagara County.

At a press conference Thursday, guild representatives announced an agreement with Cardinal O’Hara High School to use the school’s Performing Arts Center to house their productions.

The move will put the group in Erie County, which has never happened in the guild’s 84-year history, said Fran Newton, chairman of the guild’s board of directors.

“This is the first time we’ve had performances in Erie County, but it’s not very far from our loyal base in Niagara County,” Newton said. “It’s not a long way to go and there are some big artistic pluses here.”

For the past five years, the guild has held its performances in North Tonawanda’s Riviera Theatre. Frank Cannata, executive director of the Riviera Theatre, declined to comment on the reasons behind the guild’s departure.

The guild’s members loved the Riviera and will miss many things about it, including the fan-favorite organ music before shows and aesthetic aspects of the theater, said Gary Gaffney, a guild board member.

“We all love the Riviera,” Gaffney said. “But we’re a not-for-profit and they’re a not-for-profit looking to increase their income. We’ll always support the Riviera, but right now they weren’t selling what we were looking to buy.”

The biggest of those benefits to the move for the theater group is the design of O’Hara’s 960-seat Performing Arts Center, which makes up for its lack of aesthetics with tremendous acoustics, Newton said. The acoustics will especially benefit older theater patrons.

The move to Erie County will make Cardinal O’Hara the only high school in Western New York to have a resident theatre company and is an unprecedented arrangement, said Joe Ciffa, director of development for O’Hara.

Having the guild in close cooperation with a school gives the group a chance to enhance its education component, which previously consisted of performing for students and fielding questions, Gaffney said.

“Now we’ll be able to work with students on every show,” Gaffney said. “We’re bringing in a lot of state-of-the-art equipment that students might otherwise not have an opportunity to work with and learn about.”

The guild also unveiled the performance schedule for its 2007-08 season, staging “Fiddler on the Roof” in September, “Godspell” in November, “Our Town” in March and “My Fair Lady” in May. The productions and fundraisers will provide funds for both the school and the guild, making the partnership mutually beneficial, Newton said.

The current agreement is only for one year, but the guild is installing more than $40,000 worth of equipment into the facility and hopes to be there for a long time, Newton said.

“”We’re both learning as we go into this thing,” Newton said. “We might want to change some things in the agreement to benefit both groups, but we want to be in for the long haul and hope they want us here for the long haul.”

Contact reporter Daniel Pye at 693-1000, ext. 158.