Ford's Upgrade Puts Lincoln at Center Stage

Theater Expansion to Add Buildings, Historical Focus

More comfortable seats, modeled after these, are part of the project, to be completed by 2010. (Ford's Theatre)

Ford's Theatre, a melancholy landmark in downtown Washington for 140 years, is planning a multimillion-dollar expansion that will give visitors interested in history a more comprehensive look at President Abraham Lincoln.

"We want to use the theater as a focal point about Abraham Lincoln's life and his presidency, and use that as an opportunity to learn more about Lincoln's life, not just how he died," said Rex W. Tillerson, chairman and chief executive officer of ExxonMobil, who is leading the federally owned theater's drive to raise $40 million.

The campaign, which will be announced at the theater today, will create a "Lincoln campus" downtown. Eventually, six buildings on both sides of 10th Street NW will be linked as part of Ford's and Lincoln's chronicle. The reinterpretation of Lincoln will include a state-of-the-art education center directly across the street from the theater.

The historic theater, where Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, doubles as one of the city's important theaters, and the renovation will make things more comfortable for those attending plays.

Ford's will be modernized to include a new lobby with a cafe and gift shop and a refurbished museum in the basement of the main theater. And -- let the applause begin -- the overhaul includes replacing the theater's gilded seats, which are generally considered the most uncomfortable in town.

The theater, which has been closed for renovations since August, will reopen as an active stage in February 2009, in time to celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth.

Ford's generally draws 1 million visitors a year. The main attraction has been the box where Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865. Many of the tourists then visit the Petersen House across the street, where Lincoln spent his final hours until his death the next morning.

Yet these two spots only touch the surface of what Lincoln meant, why he was reviled and revered, the politics and suffering of slavery and the Civil War. Although more has been written about Lincoln than any other president, he is not always understood despite being widely recognized.

"We have unbelievable assets we are not maximizing," says Paul R. Tetreault, the theater's producing director. "For almost 40 years now, Ford's Theatre has been about those two days."

He says the goal of the new displays is to explore "who was this man and why did it matter? Why is this man the president against whom all presidents are measured?"

The renovations will be completed in two phases. The first is on the east side of 10th Street, where the original theater will be renovated. That will be finished in 2009. The second part, across the street, is to be finished by early 2010. Ford's has purchased an office building at 514 10th St., adjacent to the Petersen House. It's a narrow 10-story structure, only 24 feet wide. The front of the first four stories will be glass, with two huge images of Lincoln facing the theater. It will be called the Center for Education and Leadership, and its exhibits will cover 1861 to 1865, the years of Lincoln's presidency.

Displays will deal with the aftermath of the shooting, when bells tolled from all the churches and there were newspaper extra editions. One scene will depict the funeral train and describe the 20 days of national mourning. The shooting of Booth and the trial of his conspirators will be explained. There will be a video in which Lincoln historians discuss what might have happened if Lincoln had not gone to the theater that night.