Souris Show Hall reopens, with goal of creating cultural hub

After two years sitting empty, the Souris Show Hall is back up and running, with live music planned for the rest of the summer.

The hall, on Church Avenuejust off Main Streetin Souris, is a 130-year-old theatre that held the town's cinema for decades.

Now, the foundation running it has plans to expand into a neighbouring historic building to bring even more culture to the town.

"Everybody is very enthusiastic about seeing some sort of a cultural hub here in Souris," said Kathy Roney, chair of the board of the Souris Show Hall Foundation, the charity running the hall.

"I think that things are changing up here. We've got the climate change school down in St. Peters, and you begin to see more people building houses and businesses around here the time is right," said Roney.

The hall held a reopening concert on Aug. 7 with P.E.I. band Lovely Nelly, and there are four more concerts this month.

The foundation received federal and provincial funding to do a feasibility study of expanding into the historic LeardBuilding next door.

"We're looking at sort of a retail place also there would be offices, we'd have a performance space, a gallery space, basically a cultural hub," said Roney.

The feasibility study should be submitted to the government in the next month or so, she said.

The LeardBuilding, built in 1875, is designated by the province as a heritage property. For years it was Leard's Menswear, and has also functioned as a local museum, though it has not been in use for many years.

I'm kind of a historian myself, and I don't like to see the old buildings go down. I like to see them being restored.Souris-Elmira MLA Colin LaVie

The show hall was first built in 1890 by the Benevolent Irish Society, and anyone who grew up in Souris from the 1930s to the 1980s likely remembers going to see movies there.

Roney said that's a tradition they'd like to bring back.

"Any time we mention [showing movies], people here are very happy about that, because Souris is an hour from town and particularly in the winter, families probably don't want to drive down to Charlottetown for a film," said Roney.

One person with fond memories of going to see movies at the show hall is Colin LaVie, MLA for Souris-Elmira, who has lived in the town all his life.

"I think every kid in Souris went to the Souris Show Hall," said LaVie.

"Used to be old westerns. There was a little bit of everything back in the day."

LaVie said he's happy the foundation has gotten the hall back up and running.

"You hear the buzz around it. Everybody's excited that they're doing something with this building, getting it up, and putting some life back into it," said LaVie.

Before reopening, the hall was renovated with new drywall, flooring, and plumbing, due to a leak that had occurred in the lobby.

The hall has 150 seats, with 100 being the maximum current capacity due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Audience members may recognize the red seats, which were donated from the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown.

Musician Mark Douglas is the bagpiper for Lovely Nelly, the band that played at the venue's reopening last weekend.

"It was really cool to see how much effort and, really, love and detail that you could tell that they put into this, to the reopening," said Douglas.

"When you get those levels of acoustics and smallness and just the beautiful esthetics, you really want to be there. We were just really enjoying the kind of closeness of interaction with members of the audience."

The hall space is available for rent by local groups, whether it's for music, theatre, or lectures, said Roney.

Roney is from Charlottetown and worked for years with the Friends of the Confederation Centre. She said they are looking for a volunteer base in the Souris area to run the hall.

"We're sort of working against some ideas that we're not a Souris-based board, and I think that has hindered the town wanting to get really involved in it. And that is important," said Roney.

"One of the main goals is to get this up and going and create enough interest in the townspeople here that they can take this over and make it more Souris-led, and not somebody from Charlottetown coming out and saying what we should be doing here."

'People will support it'

Both Roney and LaVie said there is enough interest from locals and tourists to keep the hall going.

"People will support it," said LaVie.

He agreed it's important to get locals on board.

"The more people you get involved, the more people you'll bring to the events and the volunteer group."

More from CBC P.E.I.