Part II: Dream for Estes Park — 2008 
Materializing the Estes Park Performing Arts Center

  By Janice Mason

Trail Gazette Editor’s note: This is Part II of a series about the proposed Estes Park Performing Arts Center. Thanks to the enthusiastic members of the performing arts community, the vision has begun to take shape, and 2008 is the year they hope to raise the final funds necessary to make the Estes Park Performing Arts Center a reality. Part I was from the perspective of Christopher Wood, chairman for the Supporters of the Performing Arts, Inc. (SOPA), and was published in the Dec. 21, issue of the Trail-Gazette.

Estes Park has an illustrious history of performers, singing and dancing their way across various stages in town — stages that have been built and demolished — but the memories live on. However, the spirit of performance in Estes Park has continued to grow, becoming something special for all who participate or appreciate the diversity of programming offered.

Whether it’s music, theater or dance, Estes Park has built strong organizations, such as the Fine Arts Guild of the Rockies community theater organization, the Estes Park Music Festival, the Oratorio Society and chamber groups — some that have been performing for well over 35 years. Other groups encourage performances by children, showcasing their artistic talents. Internationally renowned musicians and performers have been traveling to Estes Park since the building of the Stanley Hotel and the first Rooftop Rodeo.

The draw to Estes Park is, of course, its breathtaking beauty, climate and Rocky Mountain National Park. But the town itself is also a draw, and the many performing arts events scheduled each year have proposed a problem — a problem that can be solved with the building of a new Performing Arts Center.

A committee of performing arts enthusiasts, Town of Estes Park board members and the community has embarked on this project with the formation of the Supporters of the Performing Arts, Inc. (SOPA). The group is now on its way to realizing the Estes Park Performing Arts Center. Their hope is that 2008 is the year they received enough donations to break ground on the project early 2009.

Greig Steiner, treasurer for SOPA, has been working on the details of the proposed center. He is a long-time resident of Estes Park who participated in early performances in Estes Park. He has directed productions and designed sets for many years for local community theater. He has a unique historical perspective on the viability of a new Performing Arts Center. He has also waited a long time for a theater that the community can use for the many productions presented in Estes Park throughout the year.

“Some of us who have been here a while, we’ve been working on some kind of project of this sort for 50 years,” said Steiner. “My wife and I have been in the theater here since 1959 and we were part of the original Dark Horse Theater. Those were fun days. We worked with the Fine Arts Guild at that time — they got started about just a couple years before we did.

“We have done performances in bars, in back rooms, underground, above ground in what theaters were available. Virtually about every place we have performed in Estes Park, we have to literally build a theater inside whatever building we’re in, including the high school, which is not really set up as a theater. The audience part of it is not the problem; it’s the fact that the stage has no real capacity for a stage.

Consequently, it’s a glorified lecture hall. There is no off-stage space; you can’t get on and off the stage.
“Although, we appreciate the opportunity to use Hemple Hall (at the YMCA of the Rockies); at least there’s a stage. But there’s no stage-left entrance at all; we have to build a whole system inside it in order to build scenery. We spend a lot of our time, and energy and money on just setting the show up so we can get the sets up. So, we are dissipating so much money that we could be investing in actual productions.

“So, this new theater will have the capacity to give us a stage that is a typical stage for our kind of production for a community theater, which is a proscenium opening. The proscenium opening on the new stage is going to be convertible… for plays and things… an opening that will be 20 feet high by 55 feet wide. It will be adequate for 125-piece orchestra.

“What we’ve tried to do with the designs, and Roger Thorp and his crew has done a great job, in working this out… we are trying to make it so that it will accommodate all the different types of uses that we have in town. And, also, it will be a production theater for shows that will be brought in from out of town — musical groups, dance groups, all that sort of thing. The Colorado Ballet used to come here, Central City Opera used to come here, we had the Metropolitan Opera Singers come, and we had modest areas for them to perform in.

Dancers have not had a stage that is viable for them.

“It’s been a frustrating thing having had all of those things at one time and people just saying, ‘we’re not coming up there until you get a theater.’ But we now have people from all over the country that are calling in, they’ve found out what we’re doing, and they are wanting to know what the production values at the theater are going to be so they can come here and do things. We have a number of people that are songwriters and performers from Nashville who are very, very interesting in coming and performing in our theater. We have a number of people who want to know if they are going to be able to use the theater for recording.”

There will three time periods per day for programming in the new theater with a separate rehearsal space, and plenty of storage. The theater will be fully equipped for multi-use, fulfilling all the needs of the performing arts community.

“To me, it will be a great boon because I have produced and directed, and worked on, and designed and built hundreds of shows,” said Steiner. “This will give us a firm home for our (shows).”

The Supporters of the Performing Arts, Inc (SOPA) is a non-profit group that is leading the effort and working in conjunction with the Town of Estes Park and other local non-profit agencies to build a state of the art performing arts venue in Estes Park at the Stanley Park fairgrounds. For more information or to make a donation, visit www.estesparktheater.com.

See the Friday, Dec. 28, issue of the Trail-Gazette for Part III.