November 2024

A visionary couple has transformed an abandoned church building into a community mainstay for the performing arts – and founded a contemporary ballet company that calls the venue home. 

– by Frank Perez

– photos by Ellis Anderson

A historic 1850s church building in the Marigny neighborhood – one that had been deconsecrated and abandoned –  first opened its doors as the Marigny Opera House in 2011 and quickly became one of the city’s cultural mainstays. Now it hosts approximately 80 New Orleans-based performance artist events each year as well as featuring three ballet productions by its own company, the Marigny Opera Ballet.

In addition to all that, more than two dozen weddings and receptions take place in MOH every year, helping support the artistic productions – and the building itself.  

Both the opera house and the ballet company are the brainchildren of Dave Hurlbert and Scott King, a couple who live just a few blocks away. Both businessmen have deep artistic roots that eventually led them to New Orleans and to dedicate themselves to this ongoing – and unlikely – project. 

Hurlbert is a North Carolina native who wrote musical scores for the school’s theatre as a high school student in the mid-’70s. After earning a Bachelor of Music degree from the prestigious North Carolina School of the Arts, Hurlbert moved to California where he landed a job as the principal pianist for the San Francisco Ballet.  Two years later, the promise of a steadier income pushed him toward a marketing career, working for various firms and as a freelancer. 

But his real passion remained the arts. In the early 1990s, Hurlbert and a few friends started a small opera company – Goat Hall Productions – which also performed in a converted church. For five years, they presented musicals and operas on a shoestring budget. They had no orchestra and Hurlbert provided piano accompaniment. 

“We didn’t make a dime,” says Hurlbert, “but it was fun,” and the project kept his artistic embers burning. 

Like Hurlbert, King grew up in a musical environment  – his father was a professional singer on the barbershop quartet circuit. From early childhood, he has loved to sing and write music. 

But also like Hurlbert, King’s career path diverged from his artistic leanings. He earned a degree in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1977 and then worked on his master’s degree at Harvard before taking a job on Wall Street as an investment analyst in biotechnology stocks. Three years later, he moved to San Francisco and worked for a brokerage firm before becoming an independent entrepreneur.

By 1994, Hurlbert was still working a full-time job and fell into a routine that left him little time for socializing. 

“I was a hermit with no social life – all I did was work,” he says. “So, one year I decided to go to every Christmas party I was invited to. I went to four parties and didn’t enjoy any of them. But it was at the last of the parties that I met Scott.” He smiles.

King says that “the party was all Episcopal queens. I saw Dave across the room and just had to meet him. We quickly fell into conversation about opera, and we just clicked.” 

The two men went to lunch a few days later and have been together ever since. In 1995, they celebrated their commitment with a church wedding ceremony and were legally married in Provincetown in 2005.

But eventually, the couple grew tired of San Francisco and by the early 2000s was looking for “a place to escape to,” says Hurlbert.

 “San Francisco had changed so much –  and so had we,” he says.  “It wasn’t as freewheeling as the 1970s. It became too corporate, and the weather was always cold.” The couple began looking for a second home in a “flat, warm, artistically vibrant place.”

Just a few years later, in 2004,  King attended a medical industry convention in New Orleans and decided the city “fit the bill.”  The following year, the couple visited together. Although the city was still reeling from Katrina, they could see signs of a slow comeback.

The couple then rented an apartment on St. Ann Street in the French Quarter – across from Good Friends bar – as a trial part-time residence. In their new lifestyle model, King would visit frequently, but continue working in San Francisco, while Hurlbert, who could freelance from any location, spent most of his time in New Orleans. 

After six months, the city’s seduction was complete:  The pair concluded New Orleans was ideal. They rented another apartment on the corner of Royal and Ursulines Streets and King visited often.

During one of his stays, King was riding his bicycle in the Marigny when a for sale by owner sign on a beautiful abandoned church caught his eye. He stopped and called his husband.  Hurlbert immediately rode over and they contacted the owner for a showing.

Hurlbert remembers, “It was love at first sight. The church was not expensive, but it was very run down – no electricity, no running water, no heater or air conditioner.  

“And termites.” 

The two men were not sure what they wanted to do with the church, but King says, “I knew immediately we had to have it. It’s a beautiful space. This building loves to be sung to.” 

They bought the building  in 2010, with the vision of making it a “church of the arts.” When selecting a new name for the venue, Hurlbert wanted to pay homage to the old French Opera House. 

But that vision was not initially shared by the neighborhood, which had initial concerns and circulated a petition against the proposed project.

“They thought it was going to be a nightclub because the previous owner had tried that,” says Hurbert.  In response, he walked the neighborhood and talked to residents, trying to allay their fears. He gave them his phone number and told them to please call if there was an issue. They eventually came around.

King and Hurlbert began restoring the historic property soon after the purchase. Dedicated as Holy Trinity Church in 1848 to serve the neighborhood’s German population, the original church was destroyed in a fire in 1851 and rebuilt in 1853. In 1997 – a hundred and forty-four years after it’d been rebuilt – Holy Trinity Church closed its doors and was deconsecrated. 

Just a year later, in 2011, the Marigny Opera House Foundation was established as a non-profit and the first performances took place. In those early days, Hulbert, who wanted to learn more about the city’s dance scene, organized and hosted the first-ever New Orleans Dance Festival in 2012 and 2013. Afterward, feeling that the community needed another local company, he began researching the possibility of forming one himself. So he called his mentor and friend, dance icon Paul Taylor.

“When I asked Paul what he thought about the idea of putting together a New Orleans ballet company, he didn’t hesitate to give his advice. ‘Don’t do it!’ he said.” Hurlbert recalls, laughing. “So I did it.

The project began as the Marigny Opera House Dance Company (later changing its name to the Marigny Opera Ballet) in 2014. “I didn’t know what I was doing, but I learned. And it succeeded.”

All Marigny Opera Ballet (MOB) productions are performed to live music featuring local composers and musicians. The company has presented widely acclaimed full-length ballets, including Giselle Deslondes (2016), Book of Saints (2017), and Streetcar Named Desire (2023) – among others. 

Over the years, MOB has also premiered over forty shorter original works of a dozen local choreographers, as well as a production of Aureole by Paul Taylor.

Hurlbert points out the challenges of managing a performance venue and a ballet company. During the cultural season, usually October through May, the ballet company employs six dancers, a company manager, and an artistic director. The dancers rehearse every weekday, starting at 9:30 am. MOB also contracts with the musicians who rehearse and then play at the actual performances.

A typical production takes about eight weeks to prepare and then six performances take place over two weekends. 

“We’re a small theatre – we seat just over 150 people,” says Hurlbert. “So even if we sell out, the box office only covers about a third of the expenses. But for a small theatre, that’s pretty good. 

“No opera or ballet - including the Metropolitan or the New York Ballet – makes a profit on their box office,” he says. “If it covers half of your expenses, you’re doing exceptionally well.”

Nor is much money made for the 80-odd performances by local artists. When MOH books a group, they provide advertising. Tickets are available for whatever people can afford, with most suggested donations $20. Afterward, box proceeds are split with the artists, who get 60%, while the theatre gets 40% to help defray costs and maintain the building.

Hurlbert says the remaining operating funds come from donors and grants (click here to become a MOH supporter). 

“Donors make the ballet possible,” he says. “And in our lucky case, [the funding] also comes from rentals.” 

The venue is especially popular for weddings because the service and the reception can take place in the same space. But the building is also available for corporate events, luncheons, parties,  and occasionally for film productions. It’s also a popular setting for photoshoots. 

Since Hurlbert and King own the building, the funds go directly to the foundation. They also donate personal funds as well. But Hulbert stresses that rentals are not the mission of the building or the organization. They simply help make the mission possible. 

“A big part of my job now is looking for donors and grants and making sure we’re drawing enough rental businesses so our budget works,” he says. “I never imagined I’d spend so much of my time trying to raise funds.”

“But the payoff!” he says, grinning.  “The pay-off is for Scott and me to be sitting there watching a performance, especially a performance of the Marigny Opera Ballet. Seeing those beautiful dancers on stage, hearing the musicians, seeing the looks on the faces of the audience…

“That makes it all worthwhile.” 

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