History

Back in the mid-nineteenth century, Nelsonville native George Stuart’s showboat called the Arizona traveled on canals throughout Ohio with his minstrel troupe. In 1869, the Arizona sank in the Erie Canal during a rough storm. Stuart then returned to the booming coal mining town of Nelsonville with a dream of building an opera house to serve Nelsonville and Southeastern Ohio.

Stuart's Opera House and Public Square on May 17, 1908

Envisioning a community-based arts center where first-class performances and community events could be staged, he built a magnificent theatre with bricks made by hand from a local surface clay.

The second-story playhouse called Stuart’s Opera House opened in 1879 and an article in the Athens Messenger called it, "…an ornament to the town and a monument to the public spirit of its projector." During its glory, the opera house housed a variety of events including professional touring shows of vaudeville, musicals, minstrel shows, and melodramas, community theatre, meetings, high school graduations, recitals, religious events, and dances. Famous performers graced the opera house stage, including Elsie Janis known as "The Queen of Vaudeville," vaudeville’s first great magician, Howard Thurston, and "Yankee Doodle Dandy" composer George M. Cohen. It was truly the focal point of all community activity. The theatre remained in operation until 1924.

For more than 50 years, the opera house sat empty with no performances or activity, yet with all its scenery and theatrical equipment preserved. Then in 1976, the Hocking Valley Museum of Theatrical History, Inc (HV-MOTH), a non-profit organization, formed to restore and sustain Stuart’s Opera House as a viable theatre and cultural arts center.

Inside the auditorium

Inside the auditorium (after seats were removed)

In 1979, Stuart’s Opera House was entered on the National Register of Historic Buildings. On March 24, 1980, Stuart’s Opera House was the scene of a devastating fire that nearly destroyed the community’s hopes for its future. But after an extensive renovation and restoration project, including the complete reconstruction of the street level commercial space as well as the theatre, Stuart’s reopened its doors in 1997.

Current interior of auditorium