Harlem's Apollo Theater To Build 2 New Performance Spaces

HARLEM, NY — Harlem's world-famous Apollo Theater is undertaking its first major expansion in the venue's 85-year history, Apollo officials announced this week.

The theater will build two additional performance spaces — a 99-seat theater and a 199-seat theater — in the venue formerly known as the Victoria Theater located just a few buildings down from the Apollo on West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Frederick Douglass boulevards.

The new theaters are part of a larger renovation of the Victoria Theater that includes market-rate housing, a hotel and retail space, Apollo officials said. The venues will be used to showcase up-and-coming acts that may not be ready to perform at the Apollo. All the Apollo's venues will be known collectively as the Apollo Performing Arts Center.

"The Apollo Theater is reaffirming its deep responsibility to our community and to the emerging and world-class artists with whom we work while, simultaneously, creating ways to offer even greater opportunities to artists, audiences, students, and the community and safeguarding the spirit and cultural character of Harlem," Apollo Theater President and CEO Jonelle Procope said in a statement.

Apollo cultural partners such as the Classical Theatre of Harlem, Harlem Arts Alliance, and Jazzmobile will also use the new performance spaces and the Apollo will also create a theater rental subsidy program for nonprofits, theater officials said.

The new venues will be located on the third and fourth floors of the redeveloped Victoria Theater and are expected to open sometime in 2020, theater officials said.

"The Apollo is the soul of American culture, and the Apollo Performing Arts Center will allow us to share that culture with an even wider audience, not only with the Apollo’s own productions, but with other cultural institutions that will help us create and develop the kinds of resources that serve the creative community and audiences around the corner and around the world, " Apollo Theater Executive Producer Kamilah Forbes said in a statement.

Renderings courtesy Kostow Greenwood Architects