In the New Shop...

The youngest of our three theatres, what we call "The New Theatre," (left) opened 10 years ago and has waited as long to get a name.  But, thanks to a generous $4.5 million donation near the end of last season by a group of big-money contributors, it will soon be known as the "Thomas Theatre." 



Marty Hughley of the Oregonian writes:

"A decade ago, Jo Lynn Allen, co-founder and president of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, opted not to name the theater, even though the foundation had been the lead donor behind construction of the facility.

The group includes the Goatie Foundation, Roberta and David Elliott, and Helen and Peter Bing. According to an OSF press release, it was someone from the Goatie Foundation who sought out the other donors in order to be able to name the theater after Peter D. Thomas, who worked at the festival for decades, and served as development director from 1997 until his death in 2010.

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The money donated will be used for the OSF artistic opportunity fund (a pool of money established through donations in 2009, intended to supplement the regular artistic budget) and for the planned renovation of the festival’s current First Street production building into a rehearsal space.

The latter project --  to be named the Hay Patton Rehearsal Center, after longtime designer Richard Hay and former executive director William Patton -- is contingent on the finding of a new home for the production departments."   
The Oregonian

This donation has been exciting news to us in the production department.  It means a brand new production building, designed and built just for us.  Our recently retired Executive Director, Paul Nicholson, has made it his goal to head up the fundraising and overseeing of this project before fully retiring.  

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Our property has been purchased, and blueprints have been passed around, edited and approved, and in this picture, you can see they are already breaking ground!  

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The site of our future home as viewed from the West.  

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Mr. Nicholson has continued to keep us in the loop sending us pictures like these and happy progress reports.  

We are so lucky to have this opportunity and I can't explain our excitement and anticipation.  Speaking for the paint department alone, we will more than quadruple the space of our current shop, we will have a paint frame, a huge mixing area, two sinks, and more!   

I can't wait to walk into that brand new clean shop- AND GET PAINT EVERYWHERE!!!

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