Recently, Moonshine Ink published an article entitled No Stage to Stand On. While it drew attention to the lack of a performing arts venue in Truckee/Tahoe, the piece completely missed the mark in capturing what is really needed for our local arts community. Most shockingly, Truckee Community Theater — the only nonprofit theater company in the area, having produced shows here for over 12 years — was never even contacted for input. To leave us out of the conversation is not only disappointing, it’s irresponsible.
Truckee is one of California’s 14 state-designated cultural districts, an honor that should inspire us to nurture the arts. Despite this recognition, our community still lacks a sustainable venue. For more than a decade, Truckee Community Theater has produced high-quality shows with volunteers, limited resources, and incredible community support. But without a workable performing arts space, TCT’s efforts and those of other nonprofit performing arts groups are consistently overlooked.
Currently, TCT rents the Community Arts Center from the Truckee Donner Recreation and Park District at a discounted rate. While grateful for this generosity, rent remains the most significant expense. Each production requires TCT to literally build a theater. The arts center is simply lacking essentials such as wing space, fly space, or dressing rooms — features a small theater or simple black box would include. On top of that, because the center is in such high demand, actors only get four days on stage with their sets before opening night — an impossible timeline for shows rehearsed over months.
Despite these obstacles, the level of talent here is extraordinary. Our actors, dancers, and musicians rival those in much larger communities. Truckee Community Theater proudly collaborates with other groups, such as InnerRhythms Dance and Tahoe Truckee School of Music, which also struggle to find performance spaces. Imagine what we could achieve with a proper venue designed to support our work.
Unfortunately, the local conversation about performing arts venues often gets sidetracked by grandiose visions of large-capacity venues. While impressive on paper, these projects only delay realistic solutions. The Stages at Northstar project promised a multi-million-dollar facility but drained local time and resources, pushing a realistic vision farther away. Its goal of raising more than $22 million was outlandish and completely detached from the realities of a small town. Meanwhile, Truckee Community Theater and other nonprofits were left scrambling for donations, sometimes joking, “Oh, how nice — you want to raise $20 million, and we’re grateful for $20 dollars.”
These large-scale venues are not sustainable for community-based organizations. Even if one of these projects were to come to fruition, it would be prohibitively costly for nonprofit arts groups to perform for more than one or two nights. For community theatre, where volunteers rehearse for months and invest heavily in sets and costumes, producing a show for one night is unworkable. Then there is the bigger question: Who would be able to afford such an ample space?
What Truckee truly needs is not a monument to big dreams but a modest, flexible, and affordable black box theater. A venue seating 150 to 200, with storage and rehearsal space, would be viable, sustainable, and accessible. It would allow local groups to retain ticket income or participate in fair revenue-sharing models. Most importantly, it would serve the community that already exists, rather than chase after a vision that excludes the very organizations it claims to support.
The arts are alive here, the talent is exceptional, and the passion is real, but without infrastructure, our local performing arts groups are constantly struggling. A black box theater is not only realistic, but also something Truckee Community Theater could help manage and collaborate on, ensuring that all local performance groups would have affordable access.
It’s time for Truckee to stop chasing outlandish dreams and instead prioritize a venue that reflects who we are: creative, collaborative, community-driven, and proud of our cultural identity.
~ Originally from Mill Valley, Carrie Haines earned her BFA in acting from USC’s School of Dramatic Arts. A member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors’ Equity, she has directed professional and amateur projects since 1990 and has served as producing artistic director of Truckee Community Theater since 2019.
Don’t you hate people who say, “I told you so?” Well, [we] told you so!
I was co-chair of Measure J, the bond measure that would have created both the swimming center (which the Truckee Recreation and Park District was able to go ahead and construct with the funds that it had) and a performing arts center. As a bond measure, it required a 2/3 majority vote to approve it. While we easily carried a majority, we came very close, but not quite close enough, to passing the measure.
One of the things that many people said who wouldn’t support Measure J was that we already had the old Community Center downtown that could be repurposed as a performing arts venue. Those who have been involved in the arts knew at that time that the Community Center just wasn’t going to be adequate. Kindly, it was akin to the old adage of trying to make a silk purse from other inadequate materials.
So, Measure J is history. And hopefully we have learned a lesson about myopia in that process and will be more open-minded to future infrastructure projects. I am of the firm belief that having various types of infrastructure, whether sports, arts, recreation, and other public services is what contributes to making a small mountain town a vibrant place to live and work.
I would encourage the author to not limit her vision to a small black box theater. That may well preclude non-theater groups from being able to make the venue pencil out for their needs. I was involved in TAMA (Truckee Alliance for the Musical Arts) for many, many years. We would not have been able to make a sufficient gross return in a venue that only seated 150 people to justify all of the effort and expense that went into putting on shows like we used to produce. Also, a black box theater, while ideally suited for a small theater group, may not be the best alternative for other arts organizations that may require an actual stage. Or dressing rooms. Or a tech booth. So, while it may be a great solution for TCT, it probably doesn’t make sense to construct a performing arts venue that may not address the entire community’s arts needs. I learned a lot about theater design; during the Measure J campaign and I am confident that a venue could be constructed that would be flexible enough to be a home for an organization that only needs 150 seats while also having the space to put on a performance by a regional or national act.
Also, and this is not intended to be critical of TCT, but the need for TCT to occupy a venue for an extended length of time may be seen by other organizations as counter to their own needs to use a venue. For example, if you need to occupy a venue for three months for rehearsals in the summer to allow you to put on a performance in autumn, that precludes other arts organizations from being able to use the venue during those months. I had looked into using the TDRP’s community arts venue for a musical production but found that TCT’s needs to occupy it for rehearsal times just made it impractical to try to stage our event. So, the administration of a performance venue has to be viewed with an eye towards solving the needs of as many organizations as possible and we can’t find ourselves just focusing on one group, no matter how great that organization may be.
I appreciate what TCT does for the Truckee community, giving actors and singers the chance to hone their skills and creating great entertainment for Truckee inhabitants. I would not want to see that changed in any manner. I would only ask that TCT advocate for solutions that are beneficial for multiple organizations and not fixate on ideas that might exclude those other groups from making use of a future venue.
Break a leg!