Note: Authored by David Menconi, this piece has been produced in partnership with Raleigh Arts. Menconi's latest book, "Oh, Didn't They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music," was published by University of North Carolina Press. His podcast, Carolina Calling, explores the history of the Tar Heel State through music.
Theatre Raleigh’s main performance venue hasn’t been downtown since before the Coronavirus pandemic, when the company moved out to its North Raleigh facility on Old Wake Forest Road following a 12-year run at the Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts. But Theatre Raleigh is returning to its old downtown stomping grounds this August with a seven-show run of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
The show will play August 12-15 at Vintage Church as part of the company’s 2026 Main Stage Season.
“It’s fantastic to be in downtown Raleigh again,” says Theatre Raleigh artistic director Eric Woodall, who is also directing this Hunchback production. “I love community theater where everyone volunteers their time, but I’m thrilled to bring professional musical theater back downtown. I think there’s just such a thirst for it.”
Hunchback is a venerable and much-beloved classic, based on the classic 1831 Victor Hugo story set at the fabled Paris cathedral. There have been numerous iterations over the years, including a 1996 Disney cartoon with a score by Alan Menken. The live-musical version Theatre Raleigh is putting on has additional music by Stephen Schwartz, and Raleigh native Woodall worked on a 2014 Hunchback production during his time as a New York-based casting director.
[Update: All performances of Hunchback are sold out but have a waitlist that can be joined.]
When he returned to his hometown to run North Carolina Theatre and then Theatre Raleigh, Woodall wanted to stage Hunchback here. Realizing that doing it justice required a bigger venue than Theatre Raleigh’s performance space, Woodall had the thought: What if we actually did it in a church? Vintage Church (where Woodall directed a youth production of Godspell 25 years ago, when it was called Longview) was a logical choice.
“Nothing else is going to feel like being in Notre Dame, but we could make invoke the feeling of the actual church where most of Hunchback takes place,” Woodall says. “It also has over double the capacity of our Theatre Raleigh space, so it was perfect.”
Performing live theater at Vintage Church does involve a number of logistical challenges, including having to schedule around its weekly services--and the fact that the stained-glass windows make interludes of total darkness impossible during daylight-hour matinees. Adding a further level of complexity is the fact that this will also be Theatre Raleigh’s first-ever collaboration with North Carolina Master Chorale, which Woodall enlisted to provide the vocal score.
“How to magically have an 11-member orchestra, 45-person choir and our cast and crew all mesh in a new, different place is a complicated process,” Woodall says. “I call it mix and stir, just add water. But we really have to have all the ingredients completely ready, because we only have a couple of shots to put it all together perfectly. The challenges are what make it exciting. And the singers are extraordinary, plus the music is such an incredible score.”
If all goes well, this won’t be the last time that Theatre Raleigh ventures out to other new performance spaces beyond its North Raleigh theater.
“To be able to do something site-specific with the immersive theater experience is such a joy,” says Woodall. “It’s something we’ve put into our mission for the next three years. I’d love to find a way to take a show somewhere else every other year, so that audiences get to experience that sense of surprise, of wonder, even magic.”
Theatre Raleigh’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” plays Aug. 12-15 at Vintage Church, 118 S. Person St. in downtown Raleigh. For details, see theatreraleigh.com.
