PLAYHOUSE ACADEMY UPDATE

Interested in the Playhouse Academy?

An exciting new home for young performers is coming to Terrace Plaza Playhouse! Help us shape future classes, productions, camps, and performance opportunities by telling us what would interest your family.

Click Here to Complete the Playhouse Academy Interest Form

This interest form is not registration and does not reserve a place.

From Vision to Construction

The future home of the Playhouse Academy is beginning to take shape at Beverly’s Terrace Plaza Playhouse.

What started as a vision for expanded theatre education has now moved into an active transformation of the Playhouse’s existing scenic storage and construction areas into a permanent home for year-round Academy programming, rehearsals, performances, and more.

Over the past several weeks, an enormous amount of work has already taken place.

More than 40,000 pounds, or 20 tons, of material has been removed from the former scene shop. That has included decades of accumulated scenic materials, old set pieces, lumber, furniture, props, outdated equipment, debris, and other materials left behind through years of Playhouse productions. For anyone familiar with the former scene shop, the transformation is already dramatic.

“This is one of those moments where you can finally begin to see the vision becoming real,” said Jacci Florence, Executive Producer and Theatre Owner of Beverly’s Terrace Plaza Playhouse. “There is still a tremendous amount of work ahead of us, but what has already happened in this space is incredible. Every wall we uncover and every area we clear gets us closer to creating something that will serve young people in our community for generations.”

Demolition Begins

The project is now entering its next major phase.

Beginning this week, demolition crews will begin removing remaining remnants of the grocery store that occupied portions of the building in the 1960s.

This work will clear the way for areas of the future Academy that are planned to include offices, rehearsal spaces, educational areas, and the support spaces necessary for a growing year-round theatre education program.

Once this demolition work is complete and the remaining scenic areas are fully cleared, construction of the Academy can begin.

For the Playhouse, that represents a major milestone.

More Than a Place to Take Classes

The Playhouse Academy is being designed as much more than a collection of classrooms.

Plans for the renovated space include dedicated rehearsal areas, offices, educational and instructional spaces, music and dance opportunities, technical theatre education, and an entirely new performance arena created specifically to support Academy and youth productions.

The new arena is planned to be nearly identical in size to the Playhouse’s existing MainStage performance space.

That means Academy students will not simply have a place to attend classes. They will have a place to rehearse, create, design, collaborate, and perform.

The additional performance and rehearsal space will also support the Playhouse as a whole, providing greater flexibility for MainStage rehearsals, Academy productions, summer camps, educational programs, special events, technical training, and future programming.

“The Academy has always been about creating opportunities,” said Bryant Larsen, Marketing Director of Beverly’s Terrace Plaza Playhouse. “We want students to have a place where they can learn theatre, but also a place where they can actually experience what it means to make theatre. They should be able to walk into this building, rehearse a production, learn music and choreography, work alongside designers and technicians, and ultimately step onto a stage that feels like a real theatre because it is one.” “This project also gives the entire Playhouse room to grow. The Academy will become its own creative home while also creating rehearsal and performance resources that strengthen everything happening across the organization.”

Building the Next Generation of the Playhouse

The mission behind the Academy remains the same: to provide accessible, meaningful, high-quality performing arts education for students throughout Northern Utah.

The expanded Academy will allow the Playhouse to grow beyond individual summer camps or occasional programs and develop a sustainable year-round educational organization.

Programming currently being developed includes ongoing classes, workshops, productions, camps, music and dance instruction, technical theatre opportunities, and programs serving students across a variety of ages and experience levels.

For students who have participated in previous Playhouse summer camps and youth programs, the Academy represents the next stage of that experience.

It will provide those programs with a permanent home and allow the Playhouse to serve more students, offer more opportunities, and create deeper educational experiences throughout the year.

“The most exciting part is thinking about the students who will eventually walk into this space,” Florence said. “Some will be performing for the first time. Some will discover they love lighting, sound, costumes, scenic design, music, choreography, or directing. Some will find lifelong friendships here. We are building a place where all of those discoveries can happen.”

We Still Need Our Community

While tremendous progress has already been made, there is still a significant amount of work to complete before construction can fully begin. And we need help.

Over several recent volunteer workdays, a relatively small group of volunteers has carried an enormous portion of the cleanup and relocation effort.

We are deeply grateful to every individual who has spent a morning or afternoon lifting, sorting, hauling, cleaning, tearing down old materials, loading dumpsters, transporting furniture, and helping us move this project forward.

At the same time, we have greatly missed the support of our broader Playhouse community.

The Playhouse has always existed because generations of volunteers, performers, families, patrons, businesses, and community members have been willing to step forward when something needed to be built, moved, painted, repaired, funded, or created.

The Academy will ultimately belong to and serve that same community.

We need more of that community beside us as we complete this next phase.

Current Volunteer Needs

There is still significant work to be done throughout the former scene shop and future Academy space.

Current needs include:

Tearing down and removing remaining scenic materials and structures
Loading debris and unusable materials into dumpsters
Sorting items that can be reused, donated, stored, or discarded
Transporting large quantities of usable furniture and materials to donation locations such as Deseret Industries
Moving set pieces, furniture, equipment, and scenic materials to off-site storage
Cleaning and clearing areas as demolition progresses
Loading and unloading trucks and trailers
General lifting, carrying, organizing, and cleanup

Trucks and trailers are especially helpful.

Community members who have access to pickup trucks, utility trailers, enclosed trailers, flatbeds, or other vehicles capable of transporting furniture and larger materials are encouraged to bring them during volunteer workdays whenever possible.

But a truck is not required to make a difference.

We need hands.

You do not need construction experience, and you do not need to dedicate an entire day.

An hour helps.

A morning helps.

Every load moved and every area cleared brings the project one step closer to construction.

Every Volunteer Hour Moves the Academy Forward

There is a very direct connection between the work happening now and the day the Academy can begin serving students.

The sooner the remaining scene shop can be cleared, the sooner demolition can be completed.

The sooner demolition is completed, the sooner construction can begin.

And the sooner construction begins, the sooner the Playhouse Academy can begin opening its doors to students, families, teachers, performers, and our community.

Every volunteer hour matters.

“This is one of those projects where a large group of people can accomplish in a morning what a handful of people might spend several weekends trying to finish,” Larsen said. “The more people who show up, the lighter the work becomes for everyone. If someone can give us one hour, we will gladly take that hour. It truly moves the project forward.”

Ways to Support the Playhouse Academy

In addition to volunteers, the Playhouse continues to welcome support from individuals, businesses, contractors, community organizations, and other partners who would like to be part of the project.

Current and future needs may include:

Volunteer labor
Skilled construction labor and professional services
Trucks, trailers, and moving equipment
Construction materials and supplies
Equipment
Financial contributions
Business and community partnerships
In-kind donations
Resources that can help reduce construction or operational costs

Those interested in volunteering, offering services or materials, proposing a partnership, or finding another way to support the Academy are encouraged to complete the Playhouse Academy Support Form.

Academy Support Form:

https://forms.gle/3L8Xp1QSQuUgxZfq9

What Comes Next

This project is moving.

Twenty tons of material have already left the building.

Demolition is beginning.

Construction is getting closer.

And for the first time, spaces that spent decades filled with scenery, lumber, furniture, and remnants of the building’s past are beginning to reveal what they can become next.

A rehearsal room.

A classroom.

An office.

A performance arena filled with young performers and their families.

A home for theatre education.

A place where the next generation of Playhouse performers, technicians, musicians, designers, storytellers, and artists can begin.

“We have talked about what the Playhouse Academy could become for a long time,” Florence said. “Now we are building it. There is a lot of work between today and opening those doors, but we are moving forward. We hope our community will be part of helping us get there.”

Additional updates regarding construction progress, volunteer opportunities, Academy programming, registration, fundraising, and future milestones will be shared as the transformation continues.

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