The ceiling is falling!

The Edna Boykin Cultural Center in downtown Wilson is closed indefinitely because the ceiling is drooping. The renovated 1919 theater has been a busy place since its reopening, playing host to the Arts Council of Wilson's concert series, Wilson Playhouse productions, concerts and, perhaps most famously, as home of Theater of the American South. It's a national historic landmark and an essential foundation of downtown Wilson.

The city of Wilson, which owns the building and allows the Arts Council to operate it, is working to fix the damage from a broken and falling ceiling joist. The city bought the theater in the early 1980s, when it was being used as an X-rated theater. City Council members saw the porn haven just a block from City Hall and the County Courthouse as an embarrassment to the city. The city paid what seemed at the time to be an exorbitant amount (I believe it was $100,000) but did nothing with the theater for years. Had they just waited, competition from home video would have put the old Wilson Theatre and similar porn houses out of business. Porn fans could get their jollies at home instead of in some dirty old theater. As one comedian said at the time, VCRs got pornography off the street and into the home where it belongs.

Soon after the city purchased the theater, the roof over the theater's fly space (a raised area over the stage that allowed sets to be lifted out of sight) collapsed. Rather than repair the fly space, the city just extended the roof over where the fly space had been.

There have been no reports on this, but I suspect the ceiling/roof damage occurred about the same time the fly space was damaged. I recall there were numerous leaks in the roof and other damage at the time the city took possession of the theater.

Sometime in the 1980s, I took a tour of the theater as renovation work began. Ceiling tiles created a lowered ceiling and covered the ornate plaster work on the ceilings and walls. A projection booth took up space in the closed balcony. The place was filthy and badly neglected. Seats were broken. Its restoration was close to miraculous. It took many generous private donations plus a courageous and politically hazardous commitment by Wilson City Council to bring the restoration about. But the steady use of the theater and its acceptance by the public both near and far have validated the true believers' confidence.

A few years ago, I took a representative of a military band to tour the Boykin Center, where The Wilson Daily Times was sponsoring a concert by the band. As we walked in and the lights came on, he looked at the plaster work, the stage and the proscenium and exclaimed, "Wow!" Other first-time visitors have had a similar reaction.