The Performing Arts Center (PAC) opened its doors to the public for the first time on March 19 as part of the district’s ribbon cutting ceremony. At the ceremony, students, teachers, and other community members were able to step inside the finished PAC and tour the theater and adjoining classrooms. Students will begin moving into the new building starting April 1, Theater Director Kaila Schwartz said.
Music teacher Emily Moore is looking forward to having more space and better facilities for performances, as well as having separate classrooms for her choir and orchestra classes with new equipment and integrated audio-visual equipment, she said.
“The new performing arts center is a very, very, huge step up from the theater,” Moore said. “It has all new lighting and sound. The stage is bigger; there’s an orchestra pit, which we haven’t had before. We have a lobby in the theater and more storage.”
Schwartz is excited to teach her classes in the new space and explore the capabilities of the equipment, she said. All the technical theater elements are professional level equipment, she added.
“Our space rivals college theaters,” she said. “It’s top notch equipment, and it can’t be played around with because it is high quality professional level.”
There are also lots of additional benefits such as a lobby and ticket booth, better lighting equipment such as spotlights and catwalks, and better acoustics in classes and for performances in the PAC, Schwartz said.
“I’m hoping that anybody who is interested in working as a theater technician in any aspect like lighting or sound or spot operating or even sound design — sound mixing even — I’m hoping that they can get the experience on this equipment to carry into a professional career,” Schwartz said.
Director of Bands Kylie Ward will be teaching all of her classes in the new PAC, she said. In the current band rooms, students are playing with really old instruments and equipment, Ward added.
“It (old band rooms) has served its purpose, and it’s been amazing for a program this whole time, but it’s time for something better,” Ward said. “The new building will offer them better spaces to practice in, cleaner spaces to make memories with their friends, and a better room that is acoustically designed to make everything easier and sound better, and that, in turn, will make them better musicians because they can actually hear each other, and they can have a better perception of the pitch and the music that’s happening around them.”
The new PAC will have many benefits for students, Ward said.
“For culture and morale, it’ll do really good things for the students in the program, and even other students in the school,” she said. “(It’ll be) kind of a magnet for our program; they want to be a part of it.”
The old band rooms will still be used occasionally, Moore said.
“For now, I am not allowed to run music in the parks out of the new PAC or the elementary concerts, so there are some events that I still have to run in the old building,” she said.
As for the old theater, ASB will be moving in, and as of now, the PAC is still in limited use, Schwartz said.
“Right now, the only things that have been cleared are the spring play and the final music concerts of the year, as far as performances go,” she said.
Currently, it is still unclear if and how the PAC will be revenue-generating, Ward said.
“I think that it’s a good idea, and it’s also pretty on par with what other schools do when they have a facility like that,” she said. “It’s a really great place to host community events, to rent out, to raise money, except a lot of schools usually put some of that money towards maintaining the building or to the music programs. I don’t know if our district is planning on that, but I think it’s a great idea.”
However, Ward is concerned that the district still does not have a plan for how they are going to manage the facility, especially because it is very expensive to do, she added. The arts teachers have been asking the district to hire a manager to check on equipment and ensure things are in working condition in the PAC, Ward said.
“I’m hoping that somebody listens and finds a theater manager to do that job,” she said. “Otherwise, it might not be a good idea to make revenue off the building because people don’t always treat our equipment with kindness, and so that brand new building will become very broken very quickly.”
Walking through the PAC for the first time was a jaw-dropping experience, but seeing her students experience the building for the first time felt even better, Ward added.
“It felt better than the first time I saw it because at the end of the day, it’s their space,” she said. “I just work inside it, and I felt excited for them. I felt happy for them, and it kind of made me see it through a different lens.”
Schwartz enjoyed seeing her students visit the PAC and hearing musicians bring their instruments onto the main stage to hear the beauty of the sound of the space, she said.
“It’s like the excitement that I had the first time,” Schwartz said. “When we broke ground, I was excited. And then walking through when all we pretty much had was a hole in the ground with a couple of sticks, it was still exciting. So seeing that excitement in other people was really great. It was satisfying.”
Schwartz has been part of the entire building process, including the designing and construction aspects, she said.
“It feels like finally, finally, all of that work is seeing the light of day,” she said. “This started back in 2018 or 2017. It’s been a long time. It felt really good to have the project this close to being finished.”
Moore has also visited the PAC during the construction process, she said.
“As it (the opening day) got closer, mostly we saw some photos of the construction from one of the former administrations for a while, and then as we got closer to completion, we had some trainings and tours in there,” Moore added.
Schwartz hopes that the PAC will draw more students and community members into the arts, she said.
“I know that there were some teachers from Russell Middle School who have already reached out and asked for a middle school theater day, and so, I mean, ‘Yes, bring them here,’” she said. “I’m also thinking, ‘Oh, wow, next year we can do shows for elementary school kids.’ We could have them come and we could do shows for them in our space, and hopefully that will also generate more interest.”
