Apollo Theater is adding two new performance spaces

Harlem's historic Apollo Theater is adding two new performance spaces, the New York Times reports. The Victoria Theater, a former movie theater doors away from the Apollo that was built in 1917, will house the Apollo Performing Arts Center, part of a redevelopment project of the space. Its two spaces, one with 99 seats and another with 199, will be "used to incubate works by up-and-coming artists, particularly performers of color, who might not be ready for the main theater’s 1,500-seat auditorium," according to Apollo executives. Workshops and conceptual performing art will be focal areas for pieces produced in the space.

Apollo Theater Foundation president and CEO Jonelle Procope compared the new space to Lincoln Center and Brooklyn Academy of Music. She told the New York Times that the expansion has been two decades in the making, with Apollo first being offered the opportunity to develop Victoria Theater in the late '90s. The currently planned 28-story building will be Harlem's tallest, and include condos and a Marriott Renaissance Hotel in addition to the performance spaces, which will be on the third and fourth floors and designed by architecture firm Kostow Greenwood.

Apollo Performing Arts Center is currently set to open in fall of 2020