New Seats for the Chevalier Theater

Chevalier’s resurfaced floor, prior to the installation of the new chairs.  Photo courtesy Ken Krause.

Chevalier’s brand new seats, installed this week.

Story updated 12:23PM Saturday, August 25, 2007

 – Allison Goldsberry

Medford’s stately Chevalier Theater, part of the old high school and built in 1939 as a WPA project, will receive brand-new seats this summer thanks to $350,000 secured by State Rep. Paul Donato and city officials.

The new seats are part of on-going renovations to the theater that have taken place over the past twenty-five years, transforming it from a run-down relic to a source of community pride fit for major performances.

The theater is replacing old wooden seats with upholstered ones and will restore the cast iron art deco ends.  Back in June history buffs were able to purchase some of the old seats before they were removed.

The theater is closed through the beginning of September for the seat renovation.  Removing nearly 1,000 seats was lots of work- click here to watch a video clip courtesy of Gravity Boston.

Most of the new seats were installed this week.  The work is being done in two phases and roughly 250 seats remain to be replaced.  The remaining seats will be replaced soon thanks to an additional $100,000 state grant recently secured by Rep. Donato.

Chevalier Theater Commission head John Costas said the theater will most likely remain open when the work begins to replace the remaining 250 seats.

The theater will have a smaller number of seats on the lower level, just over 1,200, when the work is completed because wider aisles had to be created to bring the historic building up to code.

According to Costas, the project is funded by $350,000 from the state, $41,000 from the city, and $50,000 from the Chevalier Theater Commission.