Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Board hopes to buy nexStage Theatre

Campaign seeks to raise $2.5 million by year?s end


By REBECCA MEANY
Express Staff Writer

The nexStage Theatre on Main Street in Ketchum could land in new ownership if a fund-raising drive achieves $2.5 million by year?s end. Photo by David N. Seelig

Supporters of the nexStage Theatre in Ketchum are hoping the season of giving touches them in a big way.

The board of directors has begun a campaign to raise $1.5 million needed to buy the theater from its current owner, The Mott Family Foundation.

"It's not on the market," said Managing Director Kathy Wygle. "(Tim Mott) is going to sell it to us for a really good price and donate some money back. Our job is to buy it."

So far, the nexStage has raised approximately one-third of the $1.5 million goal in donations or pledges. The nexStage has until March 31, 2007, to complete the purchase.

During the capital campaign, supporters are hoping to raise an additional $1 million to develop the "back building" into new performance and educational space, which would double the facility's useable area.

"We have wonderful dreams of what we'd like the building to be like," Wygle said. "There could be residential upstairs for low-cost living."

The Mott Family Foundation bought the nexStage Theatre property in July 2000.

The Sun Valley Performing Arts Center, which operates the theatre, is a not-for-profit organization with 501c-3 status.

It rents the theater from the Mott family for $1 per year.

"Thanks to the generosity of the Mott family, the community has a unique opportunity to secure a Ketchum landmark and create a permanent performing arts center," nexStage board Chairman William Lowe said in a news release.

Wygle said that despite some people's suggestions that the theater relocate to the Simplot property on Second Avenue near the Ketchum Post Office—which will be the future home of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts—they don't intend to move.

"We need more public spaces, not to combine them," she said, adding that the current location on Main Street near Ketchum's southern gateway is a "great spot."

The theater was created in 1992 in a former Jeep dealership. It serves as the permanent venue for the productions and classes of the nonprofit organization The Sun Valley Performing Arts/nexStage Theatre, which yearly produces the Sun Valley Shakespeare Festival, plays, musicals, play readings and children's theater workshops and classes.

"It's not just that it's a theater. It's a community gathering spot," Wygle said. "With everyone feeling so much loss lately, to feel like something will be saved I think everybody will be really happy."

Last year, more than 10,000 people attended events at the nexStage.

"We want to be part of the future," Wygle said.




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