Boalsburg theater to get updates, operate year-round as community arts venue
Changes are coming to the Boal Barn Playhouse and Performing Arts Center, including the addition of heat and air conditioning to make the rustic facility a year-round venue.
The about 108-seat venue also plans to add about 20 seats and make its bathrooms handicapped-accessible, Columbus Chapel and Boal Mansion Museum Director Bob Cameron said Tuesday at the barn that was formerly a summer stock theater.
“We thought, ‘What a shame that this facility sits, in essence, vacant for most of its life,’ ” Cameron said. “And the reality is, audiences less and less want to go to some place in the middle of August without air conditioning.”
The oldest arena barn theater in Pennsylvania was most recently leased by Nittany Theatre. Producing artistic director Dave Saxe and his family retired in September and moved to Florida.
The mansion soon after rethought its lease model that tied the space to one theater group and opted for an approach that is more common in the Centre Region, Cameron said.
The multiuse venue can now host any performing arts group, including those who produce concerts, movies, lectures, art shows or theater workshops.
“We really want to open this up to the community and make it available,” Cameron said.
The renovations are expected to cost about $100,000, Cameron said. The organization plans submit a grant application to offset some of the cost.
The air conditioning is scheduled to be installed by summer, while the remaining changes will be completed in phases, he said.
The playhouse is not the only area on museum grounds set to see improvements. The mansion created more than two miles of public hiking trails and is constructing eight formal gardens on the 48-acre property.
The organization is also transplanting the Victorian greenhouse that was abandoned on the grounds of Rockview state prison in 2000.
The aged nursery is set to be placed on top of an excavated swimming pool, which will allow the greenhouse to be a home to trees instead of seedlings.
The mansion’s hope is to create a tropical rainforest environment and use it to raise butterflies.
Nearly all of the greenhouse’s glass panels have been removed, and the mansion hopes to move the steel structure to the mansion in the fall.
“It’s such an exciting place. My goal is to try to turn this place around to ensure that it will be here for generations to come,” Cameron said. “I see it eventually being Happy Valley’s Central Park.”