Our Home at the Historic Pawtucket Armory

The Gamm Theatre opened its commodious yet intimate new performance space in the Pawtucket Armory Annex in late November 2003, just in time for the premiere of Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales. In the months preceding the move, Gamm staff and a host of volunteers worked around the clock building and furnishing the 137-seat venue. What once housed the Pawtucket Police Department’s cache of repossessed vehicles is now unrecognizable as the theater’s new home! Replete with glass-windowed lobby, on-site box office, ample restrooms, actors’ dressing room, green room and a black-box performance space, the new Gamm has 80% more seats than its previous Providence location; yet retains its hallmark intimacy. The Gamm is excited about the opportunity to engage and enrich the community through affordable entertainment and educational programming.

About the Pawtucket Armory Annex

Erected after WWII, the 4,500-square-foot brick annex housed military vehicles for the Rhode Island National Guard units headquartered in the adjoining Pawtucket Armory. Abandoned in 1994, the building became a garage for the Pawtucket Police Department.

The Pawtucket Armory Association, a nonprofit corporation, bought the adjacent properties from the City of Pawtucket for $1 in December 2002. The 48,000-square-foot Romanesque revival brick castle with green copper crenellated turrets was designed William Walker & Sons and built from 1894 to 1895 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The renovation of the annex as The Gamm Theatre’s residence is the first phase in a multi-year plan to revitalize the main armory and annex as a regional center for the arts and arts education.