Fall Endings and Spring Beginnings: A New Theatrical Arts Center in Central Square.

This fall marked the end for the historic Bradford Café building after 200 years in Central Square. The old building was never meant to stand longer than 50 years, and its tired, poorly modified façade will soon be replaced with a beautiful replica in the original vision of the 1800's South Row section of Central Square.

Spring Awakening:
Central Square Theater will be attached to the replica, standing elegantly behind and to the left of it, with a façade of thick channel glass aptly reflecting the historic building and offering vivid transparency into the first new theatrical arts center in Central Square. Construction is to commence this spring, with a public Ground Breaking Ceremony and parade scheduled for early May.

The new theatrical arts center will feature a state-of-the-art black box theater; a Second Stage intimate cabaret space, which will double as rehearsal space; a classroom; a workshop; an expansive theater lobby; and much more. As the first permanent home for its professional resident theater companies, The Nora Theatre Company and Underground Railway Theater, Central Square Theater will be a vibrant hub of theatrical, educational and social activity.

Team Effort:
With collaboration from MIT (property owners and site developers) and technical help from the City of Cambridge, work on the buildings will begin in mid March. The resident theater companies anticipate their first production will open in the winter of 2008. Stay tuned for more information as we transform a long-vacant space into the Central Square Theater, where artists and audiences will come together to create theater vital to our communities.

For more information on the Central Square Theater, please contact Catherine Carr Kelly, Executive Director, 617-835-1611 or cck@centralsquaretheater.org.