John Russell, Managing Director of Montford Park Players, stands in front of a hand-painted scene at the Masonic Temple theater downtown. The backdrop is one of 45 historic settings in the theater, which will host Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” December 9-19.

Staff Reports

Beginning this autumn the elegant Masonic Temple at the corner of Broadway and Woodfin Streets in downtown Asheville will be the new winter home of Asheville’s renowned Montford Park Players, North Carolina’s longest-running Shakespeare festival. From Dec. 9-19, the Players will present the 35th season of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol in the Temple’s third-floor theater; they will follow that production with another show in February and a third in April, before returning to the Hazel Robinson Amphitheatre in the Montford community for their summer Shakespeare season.

The Masonic theater, used by the Scottish Rite Masons for many years, is one of Asheville’s hidden gems. The jewel in its crown is its 45 original backdrops hand-painted by renowned theater artist Thomas Gibbs Moses, among the most prolific and important of American scenic artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The horseshoe-shaped theater, which seats more than 200, also features a proscenium arch and an upper balcony.

The Temple was designed by Richard Sharp Smith and constructed between 1913 and 1915, and is the only building he designed for a fraternal organization that is still being used for its original purpose. During its first decade it opened to the community as a hospital for African Americans during the global flu epidemic of 1918-19, and for one year it was used as a girls school, but since the mid-1920s it has been largely closed to the public.

J. R. Yarnall, President of The Asheville Masonic Temple Co., and John Russell, Managing Director of Montford Park Players, both expressed their pleasure at the new agreement. According to John Russell, “This arrangement will mean that Montford Park Players can finally achieve its goal of becoming a year-round destination attraction, in a beautiful and historic setting. This is more than just a rental agreement – this is a true collaborative effort where, over time, funding from ticket sales will assist in the restoration of a true Asheville landmark!”

Yarnall noted that the Masonic board wants to renew the organization’s commitment to the community. “We are very excited about this collaboration as it fits so well with our plans for the next century of activity with the Temple. The Temple is approaching its 100th anniversary. The chief hallmark of this plan for the future is work with the community to maintain and enhance the building for Masonic use as well as act as a resource for the community. We plan to have the temple viable for another 100 years.”

The Temple also has parking available, which is an important asset downtown. The Masons own the lot just north of the building, and they have an agreement with Home Trust Bank across Woodfin Street that Temple visitors can use the bank lot for evening events.