Ordway Center For The Performing Arts - History

History

In 1980, Saint Paul resident Sally Ordway Irvine (3M heiress and arts patron) dreamed of a European-style concert hall offering “everything from opera to the Russian circus.” Sally contributed $7.5 million—a sum matched by other members of the Ordway family—toward the cost of the facility. Fifteen Twin Cities corporations and foundations were the principal funders of the $46 million complex, then the most expensive privately funded arts facility ever built in the state. The internationally known architect (and Saint Paul native) Benjamin Thompson, whose other projects included the Faneuil Hall renovation in Boston and South Street Seaport in New York, was selected to design a building that would project “a visible contemporary image” but would also fit harmoniously on a site facing Rice Park, a block-square park framed by historic buildings. As designed by Thompson, Ordway Center (originally named Ordway Music Theatre) contains the Main Hall (1,900 seats); an intimate McKnight Theatre (306 seats); two large rehearsal rooms; and the Marzitelli Foyer, a spacious two-story lobby with a glass curtain-wall through which theater-goers enjoy a sweeping panorama of Rice Park, its surrounding buildings, and in the distance, the Mississippi River.

Ordway Center opened its doors to the public on January 1, 1985 as Ordway Music Theatre. The name was changed in 2000 to reflect the vast array of performing arts that take place under its roof.

Today Ordway Center for the Performing Arts is recognized as one of the nation’s leading not-for-profit performing arts centers serving 400,000 people annually with nearly 500 performances. It is home to a wide variety of performances that encompass the finest in musical theater, children’s theater, world music and dance, orchestra, opera, and recitals.