Rome’s Historic Desoto Theatre Foundation receives a $75,000 Georgia Council for the Arts grant to support the restoration and renovation of the building.

Rome’s Historic Desoto

Theatre Foundation was one of 77 entities in 58 Georgia counties to receive a grant from the Georgia Council for the Arts.

The Foundation received a $ 75,000 Cultural Facilities

Grant for fiscal year 2021. The grant supports the restoration or renovation of a building to be used for arts programming.

“The grant was written for relocating and replacing air conditioning units in the auditorium,” said Michelle Picon, the foundation’s development director. “Those units have been limping along for years and could break down at any moment,” she said. “So this grant comes along at a good time. What this will allow us to do is open the back area of the theater and in the future, install a large entrance and loading dock with a roll- up door to get large pieces in and out of the theater. At the moment we only have a small backstage door.”

Picon said the grant is a 60/ 40 grant.

“That means they give us 60% and we need to come up with 40%. So it is a $ 125,000 project,” she said.

With brand new units, the theater will have a state- of- theart filtration and ventilations system for patrons whenever it is reopened to the public.

“We want patrons to feel safe when they come back to a Rome Little Theatre production, a fundraising concert or a movie,” Picon said. “Patrons will have to feel safe and trust the venue, and our brand new hvac will help us provide that trust once we are able to reopen.”

She added that the grant came at a convenient time when the theater is closed to the public, giving them a chance to get as much work done as possible.

But the work will be a big undertaking, with cranes needed to bring the new units to the rooftop of the theater and the large old units will need to be hauled off from inside the theater for backstage access.

Georgia Council for the Arts received 115 applications from arts organizations, schools, libraries, cities, historical societies, community theatres, Boys & Girls Clubs and more.

Cultural Facilities Grants are available to arts organizations for repairing, preserving or acquiring an arts facility, or for purchasing equipment.