Dispute over Strand Theatre on MLK Day

Howard Manly

Mayor Thomas Menino’s well intentioned plan to revitalize the run-down Strand Theater has had the unintended effect of causing a rift with his planners for the city’s annual Martin Luther King Day festivities — they don’t want the event at the Strand.

For the last 12 years, the city’s MLK Day has been held at downtown venues, including Fanueil Hall, largely because of the city’s noble goal to get people out of the inner city communities and attend a free event at a grand old venue, such as Boston’s Symphony Hall.

But unbeknown to Menino’s MLK day planners, the city’s Office of Arts, Tourism and Special Events, headed by director Susan Hartnett, suggested the Strand for this year’s event in January. In fact, Menino told the Boston Globe that he planned to move ‘’MLK: A Gift of Song,” from Symphony Hall to the Strand on Jan. 15.

‘’I want people to start thinking about the Strand as a prominent place,” Menino told the Globe, ‘’Because that’s what it is.”

Not to several members of the mayor’s MLK Day Planning Committee.

For years, the Strand Theater, located in Upham’s Corner in Dorchester, has been plagued by mismanagement and a deteriorating building. Earlier this month, for instance, a performance of the Urban Nutcracker was temporarily suspended for 20 minutes because of a power outage. Nearby parking is all but impossible to find and the designated lot at the Sovereign bank across the street is not legal for theatergoers. On one Sunday afternoon performance of the Nutcracker, at least ten cars were towed from the bank lot, according to several theatergoers.

It’s unclear whether Hartnett actually booked the Strand for the event. The city owns the building and took over day-to-day operations last year after the financial mismanagement scandal. But what is clear is that several members of the planning committee refused to participate if the event were held at the Strand, several sources said.

Brooke Woodson, chairman of the city’s MLK Day planning committee, said that the committee’s opposition to locating the MLK event at the Strand has nothing to do with the Strand per say, but everything to do with the city’s goal to have its MLK celebration at a downtown venue.

“Lets be clear,” Woodson, said. “Everyone supports the mayor’s efforts to rebuild the Strand. But we are seeing what can be done to keep the event at one of the downtown locations. We plan to work through any internal discussions about this.”

Hartnett appears to be out of the loop and referred questions to the mayor’s press office. “I think it might be shifting but I don’t have all of the information,” she said about moving the event back downtown.

Woodson further explained that downtown venues usually have more seating capacity. The Strand holds about 1,400 people while downtown venues can hold about 2,500.

“We are trying to make the Dr. King event grow in numbers,” Woodson said. “We don’t want to go backward.”

Neither does the mayor. His plans to take the dilapidated Strand Theater to a new level are unprecedented. Menino has worked during the last year with former AOL Time Warner vice chairman Ken Novack, the Boston attorney who chaired Menino’s Task Force on the Strand. Menino has also hired Wilson Butler Architects to renovate the 87-year-old theater and former Broadway in Boston president Tony McLean, now an independent director and producer, to work as a consultant with local arts groups.

“We are very pro-Strand,” Woodson said. “The city is planning to have Black History Month events at the Strand. But the MLK event has been a way to get people from the community to go to one of the downtown venues, enjoy a free event and pay homage to Dr. King.”