Mill Mountain Theatre (MMT) is a regional performing arts theatre in Southwest Virginia. MMT began in 1964 as a Summer Stock Theatre at Rockledge Inn atop Mill Mountain. When a fire destroyed the inn in 1976, the company, formed from New York actors, performed at the Grandin Theatre, an old neighborhood movie theatre, until 1983. In that Year, MMT moved into Center in the Square (CITS), a multi-organizational cultural and educational complex as its anchor tenant. The newly-named Mill Mountain Theatre launched a year-round schedule of professional Equity productions on the Trinkle Main Stage and new and alternative dramas on the Waldron Stage (MMT's blackbox theatre also located in CITS.) MMT attendance averaged 90,000 patrons annually.
In January 2009, Mill Mountain Theater’s Board of Directors responsibly faced mounted debt by ceasing productions to focus on reorganizing the Theater’s business operations. All staff members, with the exception of the director of education were laid off. At the same time MMT's landord, Center in the Square, undertook a complete reonvation, moving MMT into temporary space.
During the reinvention process, educational classes which have been operating since the mid-1980s, continued and enrollement doubled becoming one of the theatre's best sources of income during the reinvention process. Mill Mountain Theatre Conservatory (MMTC) produced a holiday show each year during the reorganization; "Annie, Jr." in 2009, Disney's "My Son Pinocchio, Geppetto's Musical Tale" in December 2010, "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" in 2011 and 2012. All holiday performances have had sold out shows and in 2011 all shows sold out before opening night.
Mill Mountain Theatre is slowly gearing back up to full production. In March 2012, MMT produced "Greater Tuna" on the Waldron Blackbox Stage, its first professional Equity performance since 2009. On April 24, 2013, Mill Mountain Theatre returns to the Trinkle Main Stage in the newly renovated Center in the Square presenting "The Marvelous Wonderettes". Other scheduled productions for 2013 include "39 Steps" in September/October and "The Sound of Music" in December.
Through partnerships with Hollins University and others, MMT is presenting other venues such as "No Shame Theatre”, “Overnight Sensations” and “Big Lick Conspiracy.” In addition MMT has collaborated with other organizations for such as events as “Radical Reels” film series, “Race Across the Sky” film, corporate meetings, “Miss Roanoke Valley”, “Addy’s”, etc.
Mill Mountain Theatre has developed a financially sustainable business model that is innovative, pragmatic, and emphasizes regional and organizational collaboration. The new model acknowledges the organization’s historical importance to the region’s identity and tourism initiatives, while being sensitive to today’s economic realities. The reemerging MMT will be a key cultrual asset for the Roanoke Valley continuing with its 49 year plus history of providing professional theatre and consrevatory education to the Roanoke Region.
Mill Mountain Theatre is located at the Center in the Square facility on the Market Square in downtown Roanoke, Virginia, in the United States of America. The theater is named after the nearby Mill Mountain, which is a popular theme for the naming of Roanoke landmarks and organizations, including the Mill Mountain Star, Mill Mountain Zoo, and Mill Mountain Coffee and Tea.
Famous quotes containing the words mill, mountain and/or theatre:
“—First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,—
And the parson was sitting up on a rock,
At half-past nine by the meet’n’-house clock,—
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
MWhat do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“What have we achieved in mowing down mountain ranges, harnessing the energy of mighty rivers, or moving whole populations about like chess pieces, if we ourselves remain the same restless, miserable, frustrated creatures we were before? To call such activity progress is utter delusion. We may succeed in altering the face of the earth until it is unrecognizable even to the Creator, but if we are unaffected wherein lies the meaning?”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Mankind’s common instinct for reality ... has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, life’s supreme mystery is hidden. We tolerate no one who has no capacity whatever for it in any direction. On the other hand, no matter what a man’s frailties otherwise may be, if he be willing to risk death, and still more if he suffer it heroically, in the service he has chosen, the fact consecrates him forever.”
—William James (1842–1910)