Top: "Land of Jesters" 2025. Bottom: "Land of Jesters" 1965
Theatre Bristol celebrates its 60th anniversary this year with a full season, including “Lessons from Shakespeare,” “How to Avoid a Personal Tragedy,” “Land of Jesters and Rumpelstiltskin,” “Steel Magnolias,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “The Mockingbird Sings,” “The Odd Couple,” “Irving Berlin’s White Christmas” and “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.”
The 2025 season includes The StART of Adventure Summer Camp, Theatre Bristol Youth Academy’s “Schoolhouse Rock Live Jr.,” PLAYtime in the ARTspace, and the Catherine DeCaterina School of Theatre Arts classes and workshops.
In 1965, the once-upon-a-time Bristol Children’s Theatre began performing at Sullins Academy with “Land of Jesters” and “Rumpelstiltskin.” Sixty years later, its successor Theatre Bristol recently restaged these original shows to inaugurate the acquisition of the 100-year-old Cameo Theatre.
Theatre Bristol was founded by Cathy DeCaterina, a Bristol native who studied music at Bristol’s Sullins College and New York’s Juilliard School of Music, loved children and loved live performance. Her vision was to help children gain confidence. Parents clamored for what DeCaterina was offering to children, and productions continued, growing in popularity.
The theater evolved to include a full array of productions, the first being “Our Town,” “Odd Couple” and “Oklahoma.” They performed and established offices in Bristol, Virginia, at the United Company Humanities Center in 1970.
Theatre Bristol incorporated in 1978. In 1983, Theatre Bristol was gifted the historic Paramount Theater in recognition of its work. This location also became the Theatre Bristol office and rehearsal spaces for a period during its renovation. DeCaterina was instrumental in its preservation and redesigning for contemporary theater, as it was turned over to the Paramount Foundation for reopening April 1991 as the Paramount Center for the Arts.
In 1995, Theatre Bristol acquired the former Ball Brothers Furniture Company and Western Union buildings to create an expanse of scene, costume and prop shops, as well as create the Theatre Bristol ARTspace black box 100-seat theater.
From the very beginning and throughout its history, the Cathy DeCaterina School of Theatre Arts also provided cultural and artistic education through classes, workshops and summer camps.
Over the years, the theater continued to present classic plays and musicals, held a playwright festival and debuted productions. A youth leadership in the arts program was added in the 1990s. Area theaters and schools began to depend upon Theatre Bristol’s program to loan out costumes and props.
In 2015, Theatre Bristol celebrated 50 years with a full season that included the challenging “Les Miserables.” The following year, Theatre Bristol introduced a partnership with River’s Way to stage original productions written by Dottie Havlik for actors with differing abilities.
During the 2020 pandemic, Theatre Bristol kept creativity thriving by rehearsing virtually to produce Theatre Bristol On Air radio dramas and gather for online script reading experiences.
In 2022, an early introduction to theater for very young children program began, PLAYtime in the ARTspace, with a show cultivated just for them that helps children learn how to be an audience and take a bow on stage.
Throughout the years, Theatre Bristol has continued to grow because of volunteers dedicating untold hours to stage productions. With houses selling out and school shows selling out and having to turn away schools and a need for more staff, Theatre Bristol began exploring how to expand its seating. In 2024, Theatre Bristol was a finalist and winner in the Downtown Bristol Entrepreneur’s Grant Competition run by Believe in Bristol, with a plan to expand the ARTspace and a dream to acquire the Cameo Theatre.
That same fall, Theatre Bristol signed a contract to hold the Cameo Theatre and begin seeking funding. In February 2025, Theatre Bristol became the new owner of the Cameo Theatre. The stage was inaugurated March 30 with the Cameo Theatre’s 100th anniversary celebration and a joint proclamation by both cities of Bristol. The first production was a reprise of Bristol Children’s Theatre’s first: “Land of Jesters” and “Rumpelstiltskin.”
In the quest for expanding seating, in April 2025, Theatre Bristol acquired a donation of new seats for Theatre Bristol 100-seat blackbox theater, cushioned ones, to the joy of many. That same month, Theatre Bristol acquired a donation of warehouse space to help preserve sets.
“The vision is to stage productions that are most suited to each stage. Major productions that require fly, wing and backstage space and draw the audience sizes of the Paramount Bristol will continue to be on that stage. The Paramount Bristol stage is the lifeblood of community theater, giving actors a chance to perform on the main stage.
“The Cameo Theatre will feature single-set, or box set, productions primarily, like shows scheduled for this season, for example, ‘Steel Magnolias’ and ‘The Odd Couple,’ and other productions that fall within the mission of Theatre Bristol. There are exciting plans to feature entertaining and educational performances, along with memorable movies with the intent toward preserving the Cameo Theatre. More seating facilitates the ability to not only have much-needed dedicated performance space in a beautiful venue, but also draw national acts attracting children and families, and serve as a regional tourism attraction with entertainment not currently being provided.
“The Theatre Bristol ARTspace will, over time, undergo a transformation to be a convertible black box theater, with new risers and seating and stage and refinished floors and new façade. A Downtown Improvement Grant will upgrade the facade. The ARTspace will become what is needed for various productions, whether an arena, thrust, proscenium, or in-the-round stage, dinner theater or even a ballroom. It will continue to feature productions that require wing space and backstage space, children’s programming, and much more, but most importantly, it will provide much-needed accessible and additional rehearsal space.
“The value of theater to communities and the development of confidence, poise, workforce skills, economic development and much more, whether onstage or backstage, is well documented by research and needed in our community. Theatre Bristol is also one of the few theaters dedicated to children’s and family programming, and helps individuals and families spend quality time together in our community,” says Samantha Gray, executive director.
