‘Main Street Square’ stage debuts at Arts Fest

Published 5:24 pm Tuesday, May 23, 2023

: From left are Virginia Tourism Corporation President and CEO Rita McClenny, Smithfield Town Councilman Wayne Hall, Smithfield Times Publisher Emeritus John Edwards and his wife, Anne, Town Councilman Jeff Brooks, Vice Mayor Valerie Butler, Mayor Steve Bowman, Tourism Director Judy Winslow, JoAnn and Mark Hall, Darby and J.D. Walls and former Mayor Dave Hare representing TowneBank, which gave $10,000 for the new stage. Additional photos from the festival are below. (Photos by Stephen Faleski | The Smithfield Times)

Smithfield and Isle of Wight County officials celebrated the completion of the new stage outside the Smithfield Times office on May 20 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that coincided with the second annual Smithfield Arts Festival.

The new 37-foot-wide stage, which now includes a wheelchair lift, replaced a 23-foot-wide gazebo-style stage dating to 1997. The renovations included rebranding the lawn outside the Times office, affectionately known for decades as Smithfield’s “Times Square,” as “Main Street Square.”

The site serves as host to an annual summer concert series begun by Times Publisher Emeritus John Edwards and his wife, Anne, in 1987.

The Friday evening concerts, now run by the Isle of Wight Arts League, will return for the 2023 season starting May 26 with a performance by Peninsula-area blues musician Bobby BlackHat.

He won’t be the first to perform on the new stage, however. That honor has already gone to the Smithfield High School Jazz Band, which performed at the ribbon-cutting.

The new stage was funded via a $10,000 donation from TowneBank, $15,000 from the town’s share of federal American Rescue Plan Act pandemic relief money, and another $10,000 from the Virginia Tourism Corporation’s DRIVE 2.0 program – a statewide initiative to make the tourism industry more sustainable amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Work on the new stage briefly paused in February when an Isle of Wight County building inspector required that the covered stage be supported by a steel beam, which drove the project’s cost up roughly $7,000. TowneBank stepped in to make up the difference and then some with its donation.

The town acquired the Times property in 2019 from Edwards and presently leases the office to the newspaper.

The Arts Festival, which made its debut last year, replaced a June festival known as Olden Days, which the town’s and county’s shared tourism department scrapped in 2019 in favor of a more family-oriented and inclusive event held earlier in the year to avoid the heat-related medical emergencies that contributed to the Olden Days festival’s demise.

: SHS student Peter Thompson plays the trombone.

: Smithfield High School junior Alex Near plays the tenor saxophone with the SHS Jazz Band, which performed on the new Main Street Square Stage at the ribbon-cutting.

: SHS student R. Shafer Melillo plays the trumpet.

: A dedication plaque will hang near the sidewalk next to the recently completed Main Street Square Stage listing the project’s donors.

: Towne Bank Senior Vice President Kelley Healey, at right, and former Mayor Dave Hare, also representing Towne Bank, present a ceremonial check for $10,000 to Smithfield Mayor Steve Bowman, at center. The donation allowed the town to complete work on the new Main Street Square Stage after a required steel beam drove the project’s cost up several thousand dollars.

: Rita McClenny, president and CEO of the Virginia Tourism Corporation, speaks at the ribbon-cutting. The VTC funded a portion of the cost of the stage by awarding Smithfield a DRIVE 2.0 grant in 2022.

: The lawn outside The Smithfield Times office, affectionately known for years as Smithfield’s “Times Square,” has been officially rebranded “Main Street Square” with the completion of a new stage for the town’s summer concert series.

: Tess Macon of Smithfield recruits attendees and volunteers for the Harvest Faire, a Sept. 9-10 Renaissance Fair in neighboring Southampton County.

: Latoya Hill and Tim Miller serve food from Chili Hill, a Thai grocery store and restaurant on Main Street.

: Smithfield children’s book author and illustrator Kimberly Holland and her dog, Penny, gets ready for a reading of her book, “The Adventures of Joe, Sam and Dr. Knucklehead: Best in the West.”

: Ellen Owen, 15, and her mother, Nancy, both of Smithfield, show Ellen’s watercolor paintings and pencil drawings.

: Sarabeth Creech of Ivor looks through a ceramics exhibit.

: Dyaire El, Wellington El, and their mother, Letty Blanko, all of Hampton, exhibit their artwork and man-made jewelry at the Smithfield Arts Festival.