PHILL BARNETT
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
LOUISA — The Garden Theater is in the middle of its first year as a full-time theater since 1957, thanks to ARC and the Mountain Movers Theater Company.
The Garden Theater, located in downtown Louisa, originally opened to the public on New Year’s Eve 1921. Now, 100 years later, the Mountain Movers Theatre company has brought it fully back to life and it is currently in the middle of its first year of full-time operation.
Until its closing in 1957, the theater was a popular place to see circus acts, magicians and live musicians. The building space has since held an auto parts store and a law office but sat vacant for decades, causing it to fall into disrepair. ARC purchased the building in 2007, intending to revitalize downtown Louisa. By 2019, the Addiction Recovery Care corporation had fully refurbished the theater and reopened it to the public.
The Mountain Movers Theatre Company, part of the ARC creative initiative, is managed by Kim and Darryl Willard. The two formerly created and ran the Footlights youth theater program at Jenny Wiley Theater’s Pikeville location.
The son of ARC CEO Tim Robinson and his wife Lelia, Russ Robinson was a participant in the Footlights program for several years. About a month after the Pikeville theater closed, the Robinsons reached out to the Willards about starting a theater company in Louisa.
“I got a Facebook message from Lelia asking if we would be interested in creating a program like we did in Pikeville,” said Kim Willard. “At that point, all I knew about them is okay, Russ’s parents own a theater.”
Upon meeting with the Robinsons, the Willards quickly learned of their involvement with ARC and that “they had bought several buildings in downtown Louisa to try to bring the downtown back to life as a way of giving back to the town where ARC had begun.”
During the first couple of years of Mountain Movers, the Willards commuted from Pikeville producing children’s shows, much like they had done at Jenny Wiley. At the time, Kim Willard was a professor at the University of Pikeville.
Last summer, Kim Willard was hired as the full-time artistic director for the theater company, aligning with the Robinsons’ vision of a year-round community theater.
This year, the theater company produced children’s and professional shows using actors recruited from the Southeastern Theater Conference.
“We have a really good reputation with SETC, and we’ve had a lot of actors come back to do repeat work,” said Willard.
Patrons of the theater can expect the full theatrical experience. From fresh popcorn and concessions to state-of-the-art light and sound, to the art deco wall carvings that take you back to the era in which the Garden Theater was born, it’s easy to lose yourself in the show at the Garden Theater.
The theatre will feature four more shows this year. “Seussical Jr.” will show this Friday and Saturday. “Freaky Friday” will run Sept. 16-17 and 22-24. “Sleepy Hollow,” the final professional show of the year, will run Oct. 28, 29 and 31, as well as Nov. 1, 3–5 and 10–12. Closing out the 2022 season, Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol” will run Dec. 2–3 and 8–10. To purchase tickets, visit the Mountain Movers Theater Company online at http://www.mtnmoverstheatre.com/box-office/ or call the box office at (606) 331-8932.