Significant structural damage from August’s earthquake will keep a popular Arlington theater closed for several months. The auditorium at Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Community Center was booked through January before engineers decided damage to the stage area was too severe to reopen before February.
On Monday, engineers will begin a detailed analysis of the facility. Thomas Jefferson is the largest of four county-run theaters, and its closure has already been felt by the community, said Hal Crawford, theater technical director for Arlington County Cultural Affairs.
“It was supposed to be used Friday by a musical-political satire group out of Montgomery County — this was going to be their effort to move into the Northern Virginia area,” Crawford said.
But after learning of the theater’s extended closure, the Hexagon group decided to cancel the production rather than book another venue.
The Potomac Harmony Chorus, a women’s barbershop group, was slated to perform this weekend at Thomas Jefferson but will likely be rescheduled at Washington-Lee High School, Crawford said.
Both Arlington County and the public school system, which share the facilities, said no one had used the theater since a 5.8-magnitude earthquake rattled the Washington area Aug. 23.
“We sincerely regret the impact that this situation is having on the school and community … but the safety and well-being of everyone in our schools and community are our first priority,” said Clarence Stukes, the schools’ assistant superintendent for facilities and operations.
The structural engineering firm inspecting the theater discovered a shift in the masonry bearing walls and supports for the fly gallery and gridiron. The stage safety curtain will remain closed until the supports have been repaired, and the entire stage area is unusable. The auditorium area will stay closed as construction crews make repairs.
School officials said they expected the theater to reopen after Feb. 1.
The county is working at a fever pitch to relocate productions booked at Thomas Jefferson for the next four months. Some will go to other schools, including Kenmore Middle School and Washington-Lee, Crawford said.
“I was ever so optimistic that the engineers would go in and say, ‘Those cracks are just superficial and cosmetic, no problem,’ ” he said. “But I was also worried something like this could take a whole year, so this is somewhere in between.”
