About The Park Theatre
The Park Theatre will be a regional center for the arts and entertainment, a meeting place for the community and a dynamic force in the region's vitality and quality of life.
Jaffrey's Park Theatre was a vaudeville and movie house for 50 years. When sold, it became a warehouse for bicycles and baby carriages. Four years ago 838 donors from 11 towns and 13 states across the country purchased the building and charged 8 area residents with restoring and reopening this art deco treasure in the heart of downtown. Those 8 residents formed a nonprofit corporation, created a 15-member governing board, conducted engineering and design assessments of the building, undertook a fundraising feasibility study in 8 neighboring towns and northern Massachusetts, and have begun a capital campaign for $2.6m to reopen this cultural icon.
Re-opened, The Park Theatre will present movies and live performances, such as plays and concerts by local artists, schools and touring companies in a 400-seat, state-of-the-art, perfectly acoustic facility. The Theatre will serve the entire Monadnock Region of 100,000 year-round residents, 50,000 visitors, and five cooperative school districts. It will provide performance sites and enrichment programs for the region's public schools, Franklin Pierce University, and other private schools at all levels, along with space for community meetings, business events, SAU Deliberative Sessions, Town Meetings, private gatherings and social activities. The Theatre will also offer administrative services to performing artist groups in the region and, with full catering capability, make its facilities available to private and public rentals and commmunity-wide events.
The theatre has developed Performing Partnerships with Peterborough Children’s Choir and Cecilia Ensemble, Peterborough Chamber Choir, Actors’ Circle Theatre, Project Shakespeare, Monadnock Performing Arts Academy, Small Pond Productions, Monadnock Music, Branch River Theatre, The Sinfonietta, Monadnock Chorus, New England Mandolin Ensemble, Jaffrey Civic Center, Jaffrey Woman’s Club and the Jaffrey Chamber of Commerce to present its first-ever Season of Art and Entertainment held throughout the region. The Theatre holds an annual Open House on the last Saturday in July in concert with the town's festival, Riverfest.
The town of Jaffrey was founded in 1773. It is the home of Mount Monadnock, the most climbed mountain in the United States. There are twenty-three towns surrounding the mountain: Nelson, Roxbury, Keene, Marlborough, Swanzey, Troy, Sullivan, Gilsum, Surry, Westmoreland, Chesterfield, Hinsdale, Winchester, Richmond, Fitzwilliam, Hancock, Peterborough, Harrisville, Dublin, Sharon, Temple, New Ipswich and Rindge. These towns are home to 100,000 year-round residents as well as another 50,000 summer and weekend visitors.
Jaffrey is less than two hours driving time from Boston, Massachusetts, slightly more than two hours from Hartford, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island and four hours from New York City. In addition, the town boasts its own airport, Silver Ranch Airpark, and is an energetic and diverse community that is home to 5,765 souls.
