Gamut Theatre Education Center Planned For 2018

The Gamut Theatre Board of Directors voted at its 2018 Annual Meeting to move forward with Phase II of its building renovations to create the Gamut Theatre Education Center, featuring the Alexander Grass Second Stage, two renovated classrooms, areas for students to learn about costume construction, scenery design, sound and lighting, and more. Its new four-stop elevator and outdoor access will make this space fully accessible and ADA-compliant.

After securing donations of $1.5 million for Phase I of the new theatre construction, Gamut has raised an additional 87% of the approximate $700,000 cost of this new Phase II: The Gamut Theatre Education Center. Led by anchor grants from the Impact Harrisburg Foundation and the Donald B. and Dorothy L. Stabler Foundation, Gamut has steadily been raising funds for Phase II for the past two years and kicked off a public fundraising campaign March 1 to raise the remaining 13% ($88,000) of costs.

Demo and construction is planned to begin in late April and be completed by August before opening Gamut's Stage Door Series' Choose Your Own Play: HIJACKED. Based on the book by Rick Brightfield and adapted by local artist David Ramón Zayas, HIJACKED utilizes the same team that created the wildly successful production of Choose Your Own Adventure: Space Vampire performed in Gamut's Capital Blue Cross Lobby in 2017. HIJACKED is an audience participation show for all ages and will be the inaugural production for the Alexander Grass Second Stage.

Gamut Theatre's co-founder and Artistic Director Clark Nicholson is excited to "finally use a space that I have been walking around for two years, feeling it fairly bursting with potential." The Alexander Grass Second Stage will be the permanent home for the Popcorn Hat Players Children's Theatre, Stage Door Series Ensemble, and the Gamut Theatre Academy. Nicholson said, "By providing a home stage for both The Children's Theatre and for the ensemble of Stage Door, the ability to develop the distinct and beloved programming of these two groups will be vastly expanded and improved. We will continue to do what we have done well throughout our first quarter century, but with the physical facility to give each of these distinctive Gamut entities the secure launching and nurturing ground which they so richly deserve." In addition to Gamut's in-house ensembles, the Alexander Grass Second Stage will be available to the community as a resource for presentations of all kinds.

Gamut Theatre has grown substantially in the 3 years since they moved into their permanent home, and is celebrating several milestones this season. This year is the celebration of Gamut's 25th Anniversary Season! The Popcorn Hat Players set up shop in 1993 with a staff of two and a handful of original scripts for children's plays. Ever loyal to the city of Harrisburg, Melissa & Clark Nicholson rented several different spaces in Strawberry Square, moving around as their company grew. In 1994, the first Free Shakespeare in the Park production (William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream--a title that Gamut is re-visiting this June to commemorate the 25th production in Harrisburg's Reservoir Park) gave rise to the Harrisburg Shakespeare Company. In 2001, the two companies merged to create Gamut Theatre Group.

Also, Gamut Theatre has made a mark on the international theatre community in that Gamut Theatre's co-founder and Executive Director Melissa Nicholson is currently serving a two-year term as President of the Shakespeare Theatre Association, an international caucus of Shakespeare theatres whose membership includes the Oregon & Utah Shakespeare Festivals and The Globe Theatre in London. This association holds an annual conference that convenes in a different city each year. This past January, the conference was held in Cincinnati, OH and the 2019 conference will be held in Prague, Czech Republic.

For More Information and to Stay Up To Date With The Project:
Please visit www.givingtools.org/gamut