Lights Up in the Skowhegan Opera House
In February 1909, the people of Skowhegan inaugurated a new town hall, which included a 900-seat opera house. (With subsequent renovations, the current seating capacity is 840.) The structure replaced the previous town office, which had burned down five years earlier. Like its slightly smaller but better known Waterville counterpart from 1902, Skowhegan’s new town hall typified a trend in the design of municipal halls in New England at the time, i.e. a majestic edifice with city or town offices on the main floor and a large, tastefully ornamented theater on the upper story.
Skowhegan’s Colonial Revival town hall was designed by John Calvin Stevens (1855‑1940), a prolific Portland architect who designed more than 1,000 buildings in Maine. (Stevens was in the news in late May of this year when a historic house he designed in Augusta was moved across that city’s west side rotary to make way for the construction of a bank’s new headquarters.)
The Skowhegan Opera House opened to the public on February 13, 1909 with a staging of Eugene Walter’s drama The Wolf, followed three nights later by George Cohan’s musical 45 Minutes From Broadway. Since then, the opera house has hosted numerous town meetings, plays, dance recitals, movie screenings, concerts, commencements, and speeches by traveling orators, including Booker T. Washington, William Jennings Bryan, and William Howard Taft.
Currently, the Skowhegan Opera House is being managed by Lights Up Productions, a nonprofit incorporated in November 2023. The organization is run by a volunteer board of directors, headed by President Lyn Govoni, who aspires to expand the number and variety of events taking place in the Opera House. This past spring and summer, the opera house hosted six performances of Arthur Miller’s classic play The Crucible, four dance recitals, three historical tours, four children’s theater workshops, a performance by Maine comedian Bob Marley, the PBS World Premiere of Learning from Maine, and keynote speakers for Build Maine and the Maine Grain Alliance Kneading Conference.
More than a venue manager, Lights Up is also a community theater company. Besides putting on The Crucible at the Opera House late March and early April, it staged Shakespeare’s “Scottish play” in late July and early August outdoors in Skowhegan’s Coburn Park. Later this year, Lights Up will present The Great Gatsby, drawn from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s eponymous novel, in the Opera House in mid-October; “Ghost Tours” on Skowhegan’s Water Street at the end of that month; and A Charlie Brown Christmas, based on the beloved TV special, back in the theater in December.
Before Lights Up came along, a town employee, most recently Cara Mason, served as Opera House manager. There was also an Opera House Committee, consisted of the Opera House manager, a town select person, and other interested citizens, including a representative of the Friends of Skowhegan. “The Friends’ responsibility was to raise funds to give to the Town of Skowhegan for their updates and renovation projects,” Govoni said.
In July 2024, Lights Up Productions began a three-year lease of the theater, for which it pays only $1/year but must make $100,000 worth of upgrades during the triennium. So far, Lights Up has bought a sound board, clip-on microphones for actors, and speakers. Govoni continues, “We have a new lighting board and have replaced the old stage lights with LED lights. We have added safe offstage flooring, extending from the wooden stage planks all the way to the outer walls. We have big dream projects we hope to complete by the end of June 2027, including lobby level bathrooms, a new main stage valance, lobby renovation, and balcony railings.”
Looking further ahead, Lights Up aspires to make more extensive enhancements to the theater to make it more friendly to actors and audience members alike. Govoni envisions an “extended lobby area, overlooking the Kennebec River, backstage dressing room areas, new patron and stage scenery/equipment elevators, and an enclosed riverside stairway that will replace the current outside decaying fire escape. The estimated cost for all of these renovation dreams would be in the 10 million dollar range.”
To aid with those endeavors, Lights Up will hold a Gatsby Soirée Fundraiser in the Great Hall at The Skowhegan, the former mill building on Island Avenue, on Saturday, October 17. According to Govoni, “The soiree will have a 1920’s theme, best costume contest, raffles, and a photo opportunity for attendees in front of a classic car!”
Lights Up is also scheduling free theater workshops for children and adults this fall. Topics include stage combat, auditioning for a musical, makeup, and improvisational acting. More information about both the soirée and the workshops will be available soon on Lights Up’s Facebook and Instagram pages and on its website, www.lightsupskowhegan.org.
Lights Up welcomes donations toward its Opera House renovations. To donate, click the “Donate Today!” button on its website or mail a check to Lights Up Productions, P.O. Box 724, Skowhegan, ME 04976. Regardless of how you donate, please include a note that that your contribution is for “Capital Improvements.”
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