Dan Darling, executive director of the nonprofit Franklin Opera House, underscored a commitment to community theater, as well as exploring new offerings, at the Mojalaki Country Club on Tuesday night. The meeting, the third of four community forums focused on renovations to Soldiers Memorial Hall, was hosted by the Franklin Business & Industrial Development Corporation.

Darling was joined by John McArthur of the NH Music Collective and Nick Bloom of Bloom Arts and Events.

Soldiers Memorial Hall was built in the 1890s. For about 75 years, the opera house was managed by the city, bringing in plays, music and even wrestling. In 2000, Darling said opera house management was transferred to the nonprofit.

Darling told the group of about two dozen that the opera house will prioritize community theater in its programming. This includes the nonprofit Franklin Footlight Theatre, the high school and middle school drama programs and Franklin Area Children’s Theatre, a tuition-based summer program. He emphasized the opera house nonprofit also wants to add variety to the shows they offer year-round.

“We want to make sure that those programs do not get short shrift as we move into the future of program,” Darling said.

Themes for additional programming include music, dance, theater, film, poetry and comedy. The Franklin Opera House has conducted surveys about future programming. The top three results from 390 responses were musical theater, plays and tribute bands or rock music. Comedy shows, as well as jazz and pop music, also had some interest.

Darling said he looked at other venues throughout the state to determine ticket prices. Plays and musicals would average between $15 to $45, tribute band and rock music between $27 to $70, comedy shows $25 to $50, and small group and solo acts $22 to $53. With projected seating capacity at 325, the venue is on the smaller side in the Granite State. Lebanon’s Opera House seats 803, Rochester’s 700, and in Newport 675. The Flying Monkey Movie House & Performance Center in Plymouth has 486 seats. Darling believes show diversity, as well as leveraging opera house strengths, can benefit the space.

“We offer, I say, an intimate audience experience. People like coming to the opera house. It’s not a bad seating area. That's a selling point, and so we really have to leverage that,” he said.

“And then affordability is important to our audience, and that's why we need to offer a wide range of things.”

Well-known groups or artists could bring in a lot of ticket sales, including from outside the city, but are a risk due to higher ticket prices. McArthur emphasized that if the opera house invests in the proper sound systems and plays up its historical aspect, the venue can draw in a capacity crowd and create a good experience in a small venue.

“We have a series that we did over in Center Ossipee. You can't get more remote than that,” McArthur said.

“But we had people driving two hours to come to a show in Center Ossipee to see the artists that they were passionate about, because we put on a great experience there.”

Some forum attendees said as a community theater, the opera house should prioritize community acts, as well add variety to keep people interested.

Annette Andreozzi has volunteered in various positions at the opera house and has a background working in entertainment. She wants to see other talent brought to the city. She thinks the community events are nice, but interested is limited to audience members who know people in the productions.

“But I would like to see dance. I'd like to see different kinds of acts that are more available to the people in the city, so that they can actually have an opportunity to see things live,” she said.

The Franklin Opera House is expected to put on 50 events for the 2026-27 season. The nonprofit is projecting an average number of seats sold at 149, with an average ticket price at $29.35. With that calculation, the annual income would be $218,400, with costs at $168,893 and a net of $49,507. Before the renovation, they were operating 45 events with $100,000 in ticket sales.

Bloom works with the Bethlehem and Keene opera houses for their programming. He said finding what works for a venue can be hard, and takes time.

“There's a lot of trial and error that you'll want to go through to kind of see what formula works [and] what you as a community are proud of presenting,” he said.

Darling acknowledged the challenges of putting on a good programming, and said he relies on people like McArthur and Bloom, who deal with artists all the time, to help guide the Franklin Opera House in the right direction.

“This is where I turn to people like this. They know more than I do about what's available,” Darling said. “It's going to be the job of management to tap into the resources to make this program happen.”

The opera house will sell snacks, but not expected to serve food, and is uncertain about alcohol. McArthur said it's OK to leave food out of the equation, and suggested partnering with local restaurants to increase economic development in the city.

“You want money to be spent in the town, at the local restaurants,” he said.

“You wouldn't want to take that away from them.”

But Bloom said the key to making patrons and artists come back is to leave an impression.

“I find that musicians and performers and patrons will often talk about overall experience,” he said. “They'll speak to the food and the environment as much as they will anything else.”

Former Mayor Jo Brown, now executive director for Franklin's economic development council, emphasized everyone is working hard to continue to bring down the tax burden of the bond for the renovations. She pointed to an upcoming application to the Community Development Block Grant, approved by the city council on Monday.

“We are doing our best, the city is, to bring that down to make it reasonable for everybody,” she said.

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