Town Hall Arts Center
Encyclopedia
 The front of Town Hall Arts Center in March, 2005 |
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| Location: |  2450 W Main St, LittletonLittleton, Colorado Littleton is a Home Rule Municipality contained in Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. Littleton is a suburb of the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area. Littleton is the county seat of Arapahoe County and the 20th most populous city in the state of... , CO Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains... , USA United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district... |
| Website: | www.townhallartscenter.com |
Town Hall Arts Center is located in downtown Littleton
Littleton, Colorado
Littleton is a Home Rule Municipality contained in Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. Littleton is a suburb of the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area. Littleton is the county seat of Arapahoe County and the 20th most populous city in the state of...
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
and has been a local professional theatre favorite, producing fine comedies, musicals and plays
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
to the Denver Metro area for over 20 years.
Starting out
Designed by prominent Colorado architect Jacques BenedictJacques Benedict
Jules Jacques Benois Benedict was one of the most prominent architects in Colorado history, whose works include a number of well-known landmarks and buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Commonly known as Jacques Benedict, he was born in Chicago in 1879, and he studied...
and built in 1920 as a new center for civic activities, the building contained city offices
City hall
In local government, a city hall, town hall or a municipal building or civic centre, is the chief administrative building of a city...
, a community meeting
Meeting
In a meeting, two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal setting.- Definitions :An act or process of coming together as an assembly for a common purpose....
room (where the theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
is located today), a jail out back (where the loading dock
Loading dock
A loading dock is a recessed bay in a building or facility where trucks are loaded and unloaded. They are commonly found on commercial and industrial buildings, and warehouses in particular....
now is) and the volunteer fire department (the trucks were parked in what is the lobby
Lobby (room)
A lobby is a room in a building which is used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer or an entrance hall.Many office buildings, hotels and skyscrapers go to great lengths to decorate their lobbies to create the right impression....
, and the reason that lobby floor still slopes).
By the late 1970s there was a new City Hall
City hall
In local government, a city hall, town hall or a municipal building or civic centre, is the chief administrative building of a city...
on Berry Street, some visionary citizens began to ponder the fate of the old building in the center of Main Street. Through a lot of fund-raising and hard work, in 1983, it opened as a performing arts center
Performing arts center
Performing arts center, often abbreviated PAC, is used to refer to* A multi-use performance space that is intended for use by various types of the performing arts, including dance, music and theatre....
and art gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
.
Moving on
Today, the theatre is managed by a non-profit organization, The Littleton Center for Cultural Arts Foundation, Inc., doing business as Town Hall Arts Center, producing ten to twelve professionalProfessional
A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...
events a year, and offering professionally staffed multi-cultural events to school children through the popular Cultural Classroom.
In all, there are close to 150 performances presented each year, individual art shows in the Stanton Gallery, plus many community meetings in its facilities. These are accomplished with a volunteer Board of Directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
, a full-time staff of four, seven part-time staffers and numerous volunteers.
The Scientific and Cultural Facilities District
Scientific and Cultural Facilities District
The Scientific and Cultural Facilities District is a special regional tax district of the State of Colorado that provides funding for art, music, theater, dance, zoology, botany, natural history, or cultural history organizations in the Denver metropolitan area.In 1988, voters in the Denver region...
(SCFD) through the Arapahoe County Cultural Council provides a major grant
Grant (money)
Grants are funds disbursed by one party , often a Government Department, Corporation, Foundation or Trust, to a recipient, often a nonprofit entity, educational institution, business or an individual. In order to receive a grant, some form of "Grant Writing" often referred to as either a proposal...
each year, with additional grants from the City of Littleton
Littleton, Colorado
Littleton is a Home Rule Municipality contained in Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. Littleton is a suburb of the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area. Littleton is the county seat of Arapahoe County and the 20th most populous city in the state of...
and the Littleton Independent newspaper, plus donations and sponsorships from businesses, organizations and individuals, in addition to the ticket revenues generated by the Town Hall presentations.
Current season productions
Town Hall Arts Center is now celebrating its 27th Anniversary Season in 2008-2009- GreaseGrease (musical)Grease is a 1971 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The musical is named for the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as the greasers. The musical, set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School , follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of love,...
- September 18, 2009 through October 25, 2009 - Aesop-A-Rebop (Children's Theatre)- October 5, 2009 through October 17, 2009
- Oliver!Oliver!Oliver! is a British musical, with script, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens....
- November 13, 2009 through December 27, 2009 - SylviaSylvia (play)Sylvia is a play about a dog, the couple who adopts her,and the drama that results. It was written by A. R. Gurney and first produced in 1995....
- January 8, 2010 through January 31, 2010 - The Differentest School of All (Children's Theatre) - January 18, 2010 through January 28, 2010
- Guys and DollsGuys and DollsGuys and Dolls is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure", two short stories by Damon Runyon, and also borrows characters and plot elements from other Runyon stories, most notably...
- February 12, 2010 through March 14, 2010 - Altar BoyzAltar BoyzAltar Boyz is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker and book by Kevin Del Aguila . Centering on a fictitious Christian boy band from Ohio, the show satirizes, among other things, the phenomenon of boy bands and the popularity of Christian-themed music in...
- April 2, 2010 through April 25, 2010 - The Secret GardenThe Secret Garden (musical)The Secret Garden is a musical based on the 1911 novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The musical's book and lyrics are by Marsha Norman, with music by Lucy Simon...
- May 7, 2010 through June 6, 2010
Past productions (by year)
(Cultural Classroom children's shows are in smaller fonts)2003
- 8-Track: The Sounds of the 70s
- The Sound of MusicThe Sound of MusicThe Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
2004
- How to Succeed in Business Without Really TryingHow to Succeed in Business Without Really TryingHow to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert, based on Shepherd Mead's 1952 book of the same name....
- Just So StoriesJust So StoriesThe Just So Stories for Little Children were written by British author Rudyard Kipling. They are highly fantasised origin stories and are among Kipling's best known works.-Description:...
- Jesus Christ SuperstarJesus Christ SuperstarJesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...
- Androcles And The LionAndrocles and the Lion (play)Androcles and the Lion is a 1912 play written by George Bernard Shaw.Androcles and the Lion is Shaw's retelling of the tale of Androcles, a slave who is saved by the requited mercy of a lion. In the play, Shaw portrays Androcles to be one of the many Christians being led to the Colosseum for torture...
- Honk!Honk!Honk! is a musical adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story The Ugly Duckling, incorporating a message of tolerance. The book and lyrics are by Anthony Drewe and music is by George Stiles...
- The FantasticksThe FantasticksThe Fantasticks is a 1960 musical with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones. It was produced by Lore Noto. It tells an allegorical story, loosely based on the play "The Romancers" by Edmond Rostand, concerning two neighboring fathers who trick their children, Luisa and Matt, into...
- AnnieAnnie (musical)Annie is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and the book by Thomas Meehan. The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years with a blonde Annie as the poster...
2005
- Kiss Me, KateKiss Me, KateKiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.Kiss...
- Forever PlaidForever PlaidForever Plaid is an off-Broadway musical revue written by Stuart Ross in New York in 1990 and now performed internationally. The show is a revue of the close-harmony "guy groups" that reached the height of their popularity during the 1950s. Personifying the clean-cut genre are the Plaids...
- Alexander & The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
- The Music ManThe Music ManThe Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with...
- West Side StoryWest Side StoryWest Side Story is an American musical with a script by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and choreographed by Jerome Robbins...
- Little Women - The Musical
2006
- The Odd CoupleThe Odd CoupleThe Odd Couple is a 1965 Broadway play by Neil Simon, followed by a successful film and television series, as well as other derivative works and spin offs, many featuring one or more of the same actors. The plot concerns two mismatched roommates, one neat and uptight, the other more easygoing and...
(Female Version) - Chorus LineChorus lineA chorus line is a substantial group of dancers who together perform synchronized routines, usually in musical theatre. Sometimes, singing is also performed. Chorus line dancers in Broadway musicals and revues have been referred to by slang terms such as ponies, gypsies and twirlies...
- Bye Bye Birdie
- The King and IThe King and IThe King and I is a stage musical, the fifth by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. The work is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and derives from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, who became governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in...
- CabaretCabaret (musical)Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....
- Miss Nelson Has a Field Day
- CinderellaCinderella"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...
2007
- I Love You, You're Perfect, Now ChangeI Love You, You're Perfect, Now ChangeI Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change is a musical comedy with book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro and music by Jimmy Roberts. It is the second-longest running Off Broadway musical...
- FootlooseFootloose (musical)Footloose is a 1998 musical based on the 1984 film of the same name. The music is by Tom Snow , the lyrics by Dean Pitchford , and the book by Pitchford and Walter Bobbie.-Act 1:...
- 17761776 (musical)1776 is a musical with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone. The story is based on the events surrounding the signing of the Declaration of Independence...
- Charlotte's WebCharlotte's WebCharlotte's Web is an award-winning children's novel by acclaimed American author E. B. White, about a pig named Wilbur who is saved from being slaughtered by an intelligent spider named Charlotte. The book was first published in 1952, with illustrations by Garth Williams.The novel tells the story...
- My Fair LadyMy Fair LadyMy Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
- Nunsense A-MenNunsenseNunsense is a musical comedy with a book, music, and lyrics by Dan Goggin. Originating as a line of greeting cards, Goggin expanded the concept into a cabaret that ran for 38 weeks, and eventually into a full-length musical...
- Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor DreamcoatJoseph and the Amazing Technicolor DreamcoatJoseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical with lyrics by Tim Rice. The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly...
2008
- Always...Patsy Cline
- Cinderella! Cinderella!
- Fiddler on the RoofFiddler on the RoofFiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in Tsarist Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters by Sholem Aleichem...
- Swingtime Canteen
- The HobbitThe HobbitThe Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
- CompanyCompany (musical)Company is a musical with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six....
- The Full MontyThe Full Monty (musical)The Full Monty is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally and score by David Yazbek.In this Americanized musical stage version adapted from the 1997 British film of the same name, six unemployed Buffalo steelworkers, low on both cash and prospects, decide to present a strip act at a local club...
- The Further Adventures of Maide Marian
- Beauty and the BeastBeauty and the Beast (musical)Beauty and the Beast is a musical with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice and a book by Linda Woolverton, based on the 1991 Disney film of the same name. Seven new songs were written for the stage musical...
2009
- My Way - A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra
- GypsyGypsy: A Musical FableGypsy is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Gypsy is loosely based on the 1957 memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous striptease artist, and focuses on her mother, Rose, whose name has become synonymous with "the ultimate show business...
- Bat Boy the Musical
- Destination Dinosaurs
- Oklahoma!Oklahoma!Oklahoma! is the first musical written by composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance...
- GreaseGrease (musical)Grease is a 1971 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The musical is named for the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as the greasers. The musical, set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School , follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of love,...
- Aesop-A-Rebop
- Oliver!Oliver!Oliver! is a British musical, with script, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens....
External links
- Official Town Hall Arts Center Website
- History and photographs of the old Town Hall at Historic American Buildings SurveyHistoric American Buildings SurveyThe Historic American Buildings Survey , Historic American Engineering Record , and Historic American Landscapes Survey are programs of the National Park Service established for the purpose of documenting historic places. Records consists of measured drawings, archival photographs, and written...