New Search for New Hampshire Historic Theater Scenery

A new statewide search for historic painted scenery is now underway in New Hampshire.  These local treasures were created between 1890 and about 1940, the heyday of vaudeville, and are still to be found in town halls, grange halls, opera houses and community theaters.  They often contain richly painted drapery, countryside, or street scenes.  They are usually "roll drops" on wooden or metal rollers and they often feature advertisements for local businesses - dairies, piano movers, car dealers and beauty parlors.  With the arrival of movies and then television, the use of town halls and grange halls as cultural centers declined, and after WWII, the tradition of creating painted roll drops simply disappeared.  However, much of the historic scenery remains either on stage or in storage, sometimes in good condition but more often neglected, torn and very dirty.

Many of the same itinerant painters and scenic studios that created scenery in New Hampshire also sold scenery in Vermont, where 175 pieces have been found through a similar search.  Thanks to a Vermont statewide conservation initiative, every one of them will be cleaned, mended, and either re-installed or put into safe storage.  Currently, about 140 Vermont curtains have been conserved.  For information about that project, visit www.vmga.org.

In New Hampshire, more than a dozen historic scenes have been stabilized by Curtains Without Borders, a team of conservators who developed their survey and conservation skills in Vermont.  The Woodsville Opera House grand drape now hangs in the Haverill Academy Arts Center, and Henniker and Deering recently celebrated the restoration of their own scenery. 

This search is a joint project of Curtains Without Borders and the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, which supports local efforts to preserve and revive the buildings that house historic scenery.  Funding has been provided by the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation.  Other partners in this effort are the New Hampshire State Grange and the New Hampshire Department of Cultural Resources. 

For more information and to contribute any information, please contact:

Christine Hadsel
Curtains Without Borders
Preserving Historic Painted Scenery
515 South Willard Street, Apt A
Burlington, VT  05401
802-238-2720 or 802-598-5867
E-mail:  curtainswithoutborders@gmail.com

Or: 

Maggie Stier
NH Preservation Alliance
603-344-1726
mstier@nhpreservation.org