Ben Mount Theater Reopens After Six Years Closed

Payton Lundmark watched the Ben Mount Theater sit empty for years after Hurricane Laura tore through it in 2020. On Saturday, the Cultural Affairs Director stood in the same building as it reopened to the public.

The theater sits inside the Central School Arts and Humanities Center in downtown Lake Charles, according to KPLC 7 News. The City of Lake Charles and the Arts and Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana hosted a free grand reopening celebration for the public, the station reported. Musical and performance acts marked the occasion.

Hurricane Laura's damage closed the theater for six years. The rest of the Central School building reopened in 2023, but the theater needed three more years of work.

“After 2020, this whole building was severely damaged and didn’t re-open until 2023,” Lundmark told KPLC. “And they did update the walls and get the structure there, but it took another three years for us to fully renovate it and not even bring it back to its former glory, but bring it up to today’s standards.”

Central School was originally built as a local school, according to KPLC, and has served as a cultural hub for the region since. The theater's return caps years of storm recovery for the building.

Lee Ann Stenvick, executive director of the Arts and Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana, said the celebration looked back as much as it looked ahead.

“We’re here to celebrate the past, the present, and the future of the Central School and this theater specifically,” Stenvick told KPLC. “So, we’re excited to highlight all the iterations of Central School and what it means to Lake Charles.”