The nexStage Theatre, Sun Valley and Ketchum’s non-profit community theater, situated at 120 South Main Street in downtown Ketchum, is lit up with education programs, cabaret, cutting-edge theater, films and community events all year long. Well over 25,000 people attended functions at the nexStage in this past year.  Since its beginnings in 1992, the nexStage Theatre has grown by offering diverse programs that reach a large cross-section of the residents of Blaine County: dramatic arts classes, the Sun Valley Shakespeare Festival, a Producing Partners program providing financial aid for local theater companies and underwriting community non-profit events and presentations. These programs, in addition to the regular schedule of plays and readings at the nexStage, all address the organization’s overarching mission to provide a flexible venue for hosting, supporting and producing the performing arts in addition to educational, multicultural, philanthropic and community events. 

 

July 30, 2007:

There is a tangible air of excitement at the nexStage, as the $1,500,000 first phase of the Sun Valley Performing Arts Center’s Capital Campaign to save the theatre comes to a successful close, with the purchase of the theatre from the Mott Family Foundation being finalized tomorrow.

The SVPAC/nexStage Theatre, the 501©3 non-profit arts organization that has been running the theatre for the past seven years announced the news today, after an eight month community effort to raise the monies through pledges, donations and benefit concerts. With tomorrow’s purchase, SVPAC/nexStage will take ownership of the property at 120 S. Main Street, in Ketchum. They plan to continue to offer quality performing arts programs and productions at the theatre for the future, while also guaranteeing that no commercial development will take the place of the little theatre that has become such an important community hub in Blaine County.

SVPAC’s bid to keep the nexStage as a live theatre in the middle of town was aided by a resounding vote of confidence and an extraordinary outpouring of support locally.  More than 20,000 people attend performances at the nexStage each year, but support came not just from those who use the theatre. After-school theatre kids, ballet students, musicians, Shakespearean actors, dance, music and drama groups were joined by other local non-profit organizations, city planners from Ketchum/Sun Valley who want to keep Main Street alive, art gallery owners and artists, large benefactors, out-of-town patrons and family foundations; all citizens who realized the importance of having a vibrant live theatre center in our midst and who contributed to the fundraising effort. 

The former owners, the Mott Family Foundation, who had saved the theatre from commercial sale in 2000 and helping to create the SVPAC non-profit organization, made this community project possible by generously offering to sell the property to the SVPAC for a cost of only $1,500,000 and then patiently supporting the campaign by extending the time it took SVPAC to raise the funds. The property, which became a theatre in 1992, remodeled from the old Jeep dealership by arts advocate and former resident Ando Hixon, is currently valued at approximately $2,500,000.

In a statement from Tim Mott, the M F Foundation chairman responded to the success of the campaign as follows:

We'd like to congratulate the Sun Valley Performing Arts Center on the
success of their fund-raising campaign to purchase the nexStage
Theatre in Ketchum.  We also recognize this as an indication of broad support for the performing arts here, which is something we'd always hoped to see.  We're proud to have made such a significant contribution to that fund-raising, and to have been able to secure and hold the theater for the community during the time the SVPAC needed in order to demonstrate it's viability in both programming and fund-raising.  We wish the SVPAC and the nexStage much continued success in the future - assuredly now as permanent artistic institutions in the Wood River Valley."
Tim Mott, President Mott Family Foundation.