Ford's Upgrade Puts Lincoln at Center Stage
Theater Expansion to Add Buildings, Historical Focus

By Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 26, 2007

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.

Another section will talk about the Lincoln Memorial and how it emerged as a meeting place for many famous speeches and gatherings. It will contain a tower of books, representing all the words that have been written about Lincoln's life.

On the theater's side of the street, the events leading up to Lincoln's murder will be emphasized.

The theater's basement gallery, which has housed a small Lincoln museum since 1932 , gets an overhaul. There will be 12,000 square feet of displays telling the story of the Lincoln presidency and Civil War-era Washington.

One gallery will tell how Lincoln, aware of an assassination plot in 1861, came into Washington disguised as an invalid. Sound effects will include train whistles and hushed conspiratorial voices humming "Dixie." There will be excerpts from Lincoln's speeches.

Videos will discuss critical decisions, arguments and meetings, including the relationship of Lincoln and black leader Frederick Douglass. Lincoln's confrontation with Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney over the president's war powers will also be highlighted. Story boards will portray the death (from a typhoid-like illness) of the president's young son Willie, the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and the famous speech at Gettysburg.

The theater and museum, operated by the National Park Service, have 400 Lincoln objects, including Booth's diary and the original door to the president's box. It is uncertain where the most famous artifacts -- the derringer used by Booth and the hoods worn by the conspirators when they were hanged -- will be displayed.

Timelines, placed in the passage leading from the basement galleries to the theater, will show how Lincoln and Booth spent April 14, 1865.

Other changes will make the theater more comfortable.

For the first time the theater will add a roomy lobby. There's no space for one in the historic building, so Ford's is currently leasing 5,000 square feet in a building next door. The improvements will include couches in the lobby, better restrooms, a more convenient box office, new refreshment counters, a visitor center and a gift shop. There will be an elevator to the second floor and one from the new lobby to the parking garage. (The historic theater currently has no elevators.)

The strategy, approved by the Ford's Theatre Society Board of Trustees, has also been supervised by a special advisory council for the project. It includes historians David Herbert Donald, Doris Kearns Goodwin, James M. McPherson, Gary W. Gallagher and Brent Glass, the director of the National Museum of American History.

Tillerson said half of the $40 million needed for the project has been raised. The National Park Service, which manages the historic site, contributed $8.3 million and ExxonMobil, $5 million.

The site was the home of the First Baptist Church from 1833 until it was converted into a theater in 1862. Gutted by a fire the same year, it reopened in August 1863. According to the theater's records, Lincoln attended productions at Ford's at least 12 times. The president saw John Wilkes Booth perform in November 1863.

The theater was closed for 103 years, used as offices by the federal government until it reopened in 1968. That is when it was last spruced up.

The theater usually presents five productions a season, and last season's attendance was 100,000. When it reopens in 15 months, visitors to the site will watch a one-act play about April 1865 as part of their tour.

Now the chairs: The current ones are rigid, with a thin cushion. The new chair was inspired by the seats in the 19th-century Lovely Lane United Methodist Church in Baltimore. The prototype the theater is testing is wood, with a padded back and a padded seat that folds up, allowing better passage in the rows. It has armrests and filigreed iron sides. The seats will not be attached to the floor, reflecting the style of Lincoln's day. The exact number of new seats is still being worked out. Tetreault wants to eliminate the 90 seats (out of 682) that have obstructed views.

"Even before I arrived at Ford's I heard about the uncomfortable seats. For the past 3 1/2 years, everyone I meet mentions the seats," he says. "I knew no renovation would be complete without changing the seats -- it was the one thing I knew I needed to accomplish during my tenure at Ford's. I am thrilled that we are able to do that now -- and I know our audiences will be as well."