Style Weekly
Broad Street Gallery, Gay Theater Moving
Just as the fall arts season prepares for kickoff, two Broad Street mainstays have announced that they're looking for homes elsewhere.
ADA Gallery, a popular contemporary art space, will move out of 228 W. Broad St. after its September show. Its owner is looking to sell the building, where the gallery has been since 2003.
John Pollard, owner of the ADA Gallery, wouldn't disclose the new spot because the details haven't been finalized. The current location, however, has been an anchor for the First Fridays Artwalk.
Earlier this spring, the gallery's artwork gained notoriety at a show in New York after cyclist Lance Armstrong purchased a piece by Richmond sculptor Morgan Herrin. The New York Post's Page 6 noted the sculpture for its erect nipples.
In other Broad Street defections, the Richmond Triangle Players, true to their geometry, will perform in three new spaces this year, culminating next fall with the opening of a theater all their own.
The company has produced 15 seasons of gay-themed theater — motto: "If we didn't do it, who would?" — in the second-floor blackbox of Fieldens, a members-only club on West Broad Street. Earlier this year, a generous patron purchased the old Carl's Radiator building at the corner of Marshall and Altamont streets in Scott's Addition, offering the Players a long-term lease on the place.
In the meantime, the group will stage its shows as dinner theater in Highwater, the restaurant in Toad's Place. This arrangement perfectly suits "Four Queens in Hawaiian Shirts," where some of the action will take place right at the bar. For winter, "Bite Me," follows the capers of, what else, three drag vampires.
In April, the company will mount the musical "Altar Boyz" at Metropolitan Community Church in the Fan. Mike Gooding, the company's managing director, says he hopes to open the new location next fall.
"I just have to raise about a half a million dollars now," Gooding says. "We're calling it our journey to our next ‘stage.’"
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