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Originally Posted by ap111
This is a really interesting concept. Seems like it would have been a good fit for the State Palace Theater.
“The Fallen Saint” immersive theatre production plans to make Magazine Street warehouse its venue
"A new form of avant garde immersive theatre popular in New York City is seeking to make a Magazine Street warehouse its home in New Orleans, producers of the project told Lower Garden District neighbors this week.
“The Fallen Saint” will combine live music and theatre in a series of intimate settings inside the warehouse at 1152 Magazine Street, said Seth and Rosa Dunlap, the owners of the building. The building will also feature a full-service restaurant with live music that will operate even when the show is not running, they said."
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Not a good fit at all. That's like saying Jesuit should play their home games in the Superdome.
Not all performance spaces are created alike. The Fallen Saint is basically a black box style theater, with a small number of seats in an industrial space that is cheap to build out and operate. The State Palace is a massive theater with thousands of seats and an astronomical operating cost. Fallen Saint could never afford the bills on State Palace in a million years. Even if they could, it doesn't fit their concept, there's too much separation between front and back of house.
There's really only a limited number of shows and productions that bring in enough revenue to sustain a building like the Saenger or State Palace. Plus, there's heavy competition from other venues like the Orpheum, Mahalia Jackson, Smoothie King Center, Jefferson PAC, Champions Square, Civic, etc. I honestly don't know what would work for State Palace, I really liked the idea of building a highrise above the preserved facade and turning the auditorium into a funky hotel lobby with movie screenings. But apparently the Landmarks Commission has no imagination and thinks a developer can somehow conjure a bunch of 3000-seat sell-out shows out of thin air.