You might expect Jerome Davis to be frantic. Not over Thursday's opening of his theater company's 11th season with "Hamlet" but an even bigger opening: the Murphey School auditorium, future home of Burning Coal Theatre.

In the year since Burning Coal began renovating the historic space, costs have more than doubled, from $500,000 to $1.2 million. Yet Davis, who still has $260,000 left to raise, says he's more confident now than when he was $40,000 short of the original estimate.

Project proponents have become tireless fundraisers, securing donations from sources Davis wouldn't have thought to approach. And Davis is offering naming rights galore: for the building, the lobby, the stage and the balcony.

The Murphey School opened in 1916 at the corner of Polk and Person streets in the Oakwood neighborhood. The auditorium, where the school board voted in 1960 to make Murphey the first integrated public school in Raleigh, hasn't held an audience since the school closed in 1969.

The state bought the property and leased it to the city, which turned the main building into affordable housing for seniors. Davis persuaded the city to let Burning Coal transform the auditorium into a flexible performance space with a 175-seat capacity.

With $380,000 in city grants and contributions from a long list of supporters, the auditorium is shaping up for a January opening. If Davis is frantic about anything, it's finding a suitable debut show after plans to stage "Oldest Living Confederate Widow: Her Story" fell through. Allan Gurganus was adapting his best-selling novel "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All" with writer-actress Jane Holding.

Davis hopes to keep the new theater hopping year-round, with productions by Burning Coal and guest troupes, and other events -- including a new program he's developing with N.C. Theatre to develop new musicals.

"I'm going to do my very best to make it clear as often as I can and as loud as I can that this space is meant for everybody," he says. "Anybody who can use it will use it."

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