V
ine Street in Over-the-Rhine usually receives all of the hosannas — and Guy Fieri’s overwhelming presence — but that’s about to change when The Woodward Theater opens on Main Street this month.
Vine’s become saturated with popular restaurants such as Bakersfield, A Tavola and Senate, which can run up to two-hour waits on weekends.
But Main Street, a two-block jaunt east of Vine, is in some ways the neighborhood’s grittier sister street — live music venues and bars instead of the glitzy restaurants and new condos on Vine. Japps, MOTR Pub (across the street from The Woodward) and other Main Street bars and retail have all been successful but don’t regularly attract the same bustling crowds as their neighboring thoroughfare.
The Woodward Theater, an endeavor seven years in the making, will open its historic doors on Nov. 7 for an open house event called #PintsForPaint (beer sales will go toward buying paint for the walls), and then the theater will host its first two music shows: Michigan collective The Soil & The Sun on Nov. 10 and Brooklyn, N.Y., Baroque group San Fermin on Nov. 12.
“People are going to be surprised at how Main Street potentially could take the lead,” says Dan McCabe, co-owner of The Woodward and also MOTR Pub across the street.
McCabe opened MOTR in 2010, during the early days of Over-the-Rhine’s resurgence. In 2007, McCabe started looking for a music venue with the intention of a larger facility but decided on the smaller MOTR space. In 2011, McCabe and his MOTR (and Woodward) partners Chris Schadler and Chris Varias got motivated to find another, larger venue.
“It’s a grassroots operation,” McCabe says about The Woodward. “It’s not a 3CDC-mandated project. This is a bunch of guys risking it all, rolling the dice, getting on our hands and knees and working on floorboards and other things, trying to make it work. It’s like-minded individuals coming together to make something happen. It’s fun to kind of be a high-profile representation of that process of how things happen on Main Street.”
The 600-capacity venue will greatly surpass MOTR’s small stage and music room/main bar, and because there will be more space and in-demand bands, it will encourage people from all over to visit Cincinnati.
“The region will come to these shows,” McCabe says. “Some of the shows we have on sale now for here, if you look at the presale, they’re coming from Cleveland, and this will be their window into Over-the-Rhine. I’m excited to see how that impacts the neighborhood.”
Nearby bars Liberty’s Bar & Bottle, Mr. Pitiful’s and The Drinkery are poised to experience a surge in crowds before and after Woodward shows.
McCabe and his MOTR partners imagine The Woodward not just as a music venue but also as a “versatile events hall,” which will host films, private events, speakers, MidPoint 2015 shows and the Art Academy of Cincinnati graduation ceremony in the spring.
If anyone can transform a dilapidated building and turn it into something pulsating, McCabe and his team can. McCabe is a former CityBeat marketing and promotions manager, current booker of MidPoint and former Sudsy Malone’s booker; Varias has been a music writer for The Cincinnati Enquirer since the ’90s; Schadler was the in-house promo manager of the old Southgate House and is an urban planner who wrote a paper called “The Impact of Live Music Culture on Urban Quality of Life,” speaking twice at a conference in Prague about the positive effects live Rock music can have on blighted communities.
Construction on The Woodward broke ground in May, and this summer they received a loan to complete the project. They’ve since gutted the place, leaving the plaster proscenium with light-bulb rosettes as the only original intact interior memorabilia. “When people see photos of performances and stuff, they’ll know where they were,” McCabe says.
William Woodward opened the space in 1913. Until 1933, when the Great Depression hit, it was a movie theater. It then became Andy Schain Auto, and in the 1940s-60s, it was a Kroger. When McCabe purchased the building, it was an antiques warehouse.
In renovating the place, they’ve found artifacts like a 1930s license plate and Schain Auto signage that they plan to integrate into the theater. There’s no seating, but there are two stories, with a second-floor balcony enabling people to view the stage from above. A first floor bar will have 24 taps, including a lot of local beers. Shows will start between 8 and 9:30 p.m. and will end around 11 p.m. to dovetail with MOTR’s late-night schedule.
“For those who want to keep going, there’s a free show across the street,” McCabe says.
Woodward wants to attract acts that have outgrown MOTR — especially local bands. Already scheduled is a December DAAP Girls record release show, an Ohio Knife performance and a couple of bigger acts that haven’t been announced. Wussy was recently announced as the headliner for The Woodward’s New Year’s Eve show.
“We’ll develop artists over there and as they get to the point where our four walls can’t contain them at MOTR, we’ll graduate ’em over to here,” McCabe says.
Unlike MOTR’s nightly free shows, performances at Woodward will be ticketed and cost $5-$15, depending on the show. Woodward will only be open for shows — not also as a bar.
The Woodward’s exterior vintage lights will shine soon; when lit, you’ll be able to see them from as far as Vine Street. The Beaux Arts architecture distinguishes the theater from the rampant Italianate buildings in the neighborhood, as do the porcelain brick and plaster statues. The exterior might look familiar: It was featured in the Cincinnati-filmed 1988 Charlie Sheen/John Cusack baseball flick Eight Men Out.
More than anything, McCabe and partners envision The Woodward as a catalyst for change and growth within the community.
“I hope people from, say, Indianapolis — a young couple — comes down here fresh out of college to see a show, starts looking around and says, ‘Well, maybe we should plant roots here and start a career in Cincinnati. Let’s look around for a job.’ I think it could really be a driver not only for the neighborhood but also putting Cincinnati on the map as a fun place to live, work and play.” ©
THE WOODWARD THEATER opens Friday with a #PintsForPaint open house at 1404 Main St., Over-the-Rhine. More info: woodwardtheater.com.
This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2014.