r Springville’s historic Rivoli Theater, which has been on Main Street since 1927, has been vacant since 2008 and has been leased to a new tenant with an option to buy it. With that lease comes renovation plans by motion picture producer Melissa Cannon. She envisions restoring the theater to its historic charm and doing some upgrades to areas like the restrooms. The building has been unoccupied and deteriorating and a lot of effort and expense will have to go into the first phase of the renovation. Melissa is targeting phase one completion by June 2018 for Art City Days. Her vision of revitalizing the Springville Theater is exciting. She has the financial resources to do it right and retain the art deco theme.
Melissa is being assisted by Sareth Prabhakar who was born in India and was brought to the United States when he was 11 months old. He became a U.S. citizen when he was a child. He is a graduate of BYU and his interest is in bringing music groups to the theater.
Daryl Tucker who is president of the Springville Historical Society has a comprehensive knowledge of the Rivoli Theater’s history. He has been involved in efforts to bring the theater back to life for many years. Melissa Cannon appreciates the historical perspective and wants to bring back to the theater people who have been involved with the Rivoli over the past decades to create a human interest story. This would be a very interesting renovation reality TV show and could generate additional funding for the renovation.
In the future Melissa sees the Rivoli Theater showing independent films, as well as scheduling live theater performances. She eventually wants to bring a film Festival event to the Rivoli. This is going to be a great addition to Main Street Art City. Serve Daily will be following the remodeling and reopening of the Rivoli Theater in the months ahead.
