The Reno City Council is now asking local historian and writer Alicia Barber to plan a citizen’s summit to gage the next steps for the perpetually in limbo and idle Lear Theater.
This comes after the council received a letter of interest from a local photographer with few financial specifics to revive the historical theater built in the 1930s by the Black architect Paul Revere Williams.
On its own website the City of Reno has a page called Lear Theater, which it started after it took over the historic building from Artown in 2021, which never got it going in its own years of having it under its control.
The building served as the primary worship center for the First Church of Christ, Scientist until 1998. When the congregation moved to a new church location south of the city in 1998, one of its members, Moya Lear, saw potential in the storied building to serve as a prominent community theater.
Consequently, Lear pledged over $1 million that was matched by the community to support the purchase of the building.
It was then transferred to the Reno-Sparks Theater Community Coalition, a group that was founded in 1993 by fellow congregation member Edda Morrison. The Coalition then took on the name of Lear Theater Inc. and very briefly operated as a functioning community theater.
Theater operations were short-lived, however, as renovation and construction efforts were never completed. Then in December 2011, the late former mayor Bob Cashell helped facilitate the transfer of the Lear Theater to Artown.
Now with the city in control, its city council members have been sensitive to criticism from the public for not seeing any reopening and use, besides a pretty fenced off and deteriorating majestic structure by the Truckee River.
The Lear Theater is expected to be discussed at next month’s Historical Resources Commission meeting, after which Barber is expected to schedule a wider community summit.
Finding funds for renovations will remain a big sticking point.
