Emerson College To Keep Colonial Theatre Open

BOSTON (CBS) - Good news for fans of live theater in Boston - the Colonial Theatre will remain the Colonial Theatre.

Boston's oldest-continually operating theater will keep operating.

It was on the verge of becoming a dining hall for the theater's owner, Emerson College, but the school has decided to put that somewhere else.

So the show will go on at the Colonial, much to the delight of Joyce Linehan, chief of policy for the City of Boston.

"We're very excited that the Colonial will continue to present performing arts, excited to help Emerson go through their process to figure out what that programming looks like, and very grateful that they found a solution to their space problems, in terms of dining, so it's a good day," she told WBZ NewsRadio 1030.

The first performance at the Colonial was Ben-Hur in 1900. It featured eight horses on stage.

"The Colonial is historically very important. It's a very storied theater. The theater community was rightly concerned," Linehan said. "So this is a really great solution."

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Carl Stevens reports