Curtain to Rise on Purcellville Arts Center

Performance Space Built on Barn Site

By Arianne Aryanpur (Contact)

Thursday, January 24, 2008

For years, Stacey Sweet has made due with rehearsing in a small county parks building and taking the stage in middle school auditoriums. Sweet, who belongs to a performing arts group for people with disabilities, has faced the same problem as every other actor, dancer and musician in Loudoun County: the absence of a dedicated home for the arts.

On Tuesday, though, Sweet was standing inside the building that will soon fulfill that need, and looking forward to performing on its stage in March in an new musical about four generations of a Loudoun farm family.

It took more than a decade, but the dream of a group of local artists — to build an arts complex on the foundation of an old dairy barn in Purcellville — will finally come true in a few days. The Franklin Park Performing and Visual Arts Center opens to the public Feb. 2.

The center will be the first theater and concert facility in Loudoun that is not attached to a school or university. And with a stadium-style theater framed by huge wooden rafters and the wall of a 19th-century silo, it will be unlike any other performance space in the region.

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Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center

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The new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center in Purcellville is a 275-seat indoor stadium style theater, constructed using the foundation of a 19th Century dairy barn complex and silo. Sitting in front of the new center is a handmade ceramic piece by Goose Creek Tileworks. (Richard A. Lipski)

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The new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center in Purcellville is a 275-seat indoor stadium style theater constructed using the foundation of a 19th Century dairy barn complex and silo. Looking out from the stage, the silo rises above the seats. (Richard A. Lipski)

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At the new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center in Purcellville, wood beams frame the stage area. (Richard A. Lipski)

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Here is the green room area just off stage at the new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center, a 275-seat indoor stadium style theater in Purcellville. Actors and actresses will prepare for their on-stage performances here before facing the crowd. (Richard A. Lipski)

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The upper seating area at the new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center, a 275-seat indoor stadium style theater, constructed using the foundation of a 19th Century dairy barn complex and silo. (Richard A. Lipski)

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A state-of-the-art, computer-controlled lighting and sound system, where the lights and sound are controlled, fills the control booth at the new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center. (Richard A. Lipski)

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The new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center in Purcellville provides 275 seats in the indoor stadium style theater, constructed using the foundation of a 19th Century dairy barn complex and silo. (Richard A. Lipski)

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Beams of wooden rafters frame the interior of the new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center, a 275-seat indoor stadium style theater in Purcellville. (Richard A. Lipski)

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Manager Jeffery Stern talks about the stage area during the media tour of the new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center in Purcellville. (Richard A. Lipski)

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Center Manager Jeffrey Stern on stage giving a media tour of the new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center, a 275-seat indoor stadium style theater, constructed using the foundation of a 19th Century dairy barn complex and silo. (Richard A. Lipski)

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Art hangs on the walls of the lobby of the new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center located in Purcellville. (Richard A. Lipski)

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Outside the new Franklin Park Performing & Visual Arts Center. (Richard A. Lipski)

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The building has been under construction since the original barn burned in 1997, leaving only the clay tile silo and one foundation wall standing. Local volunteers, working with the Timber Framers Guild of North America, built a new barn on the site the next year. The names of volunteers were written on the beams.

The nonprofit group that launched the project, Barns at Franklin Park, eventually ran out of money. The arts center got new life in 2004 after voters approved a $1.4 million bond to finance electricity, carpeting and the 275 seats inside the theater, among other improvements. Then came more delays because of rising construction costs.

The center's total cost was nearly $4 million, with the county contributing $2.5 million and the rest coming from private donors. The total does not include in-kind donations of labor and materials from construction companies, developers and civic groups.

Diane Ryburn, director of the Loudoun County Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services, which will manage the center, called the project a "community-funded, volunteer effort."

"It's been over 10 years in the making," Ryburn said during a media tour Tuesday. "We are very excited."

The 13,000-square-foot facility includes exhibition space for visual artists and a green room for performers that will double as a classroom for children's art and music lessons.

The theater has digitally controlled sound and a stage floor made of Masonite, to which set designers can affix artificial grass, trees and other scenery. A roll-out floor will be available for dance groups.

Nonprofit arts groups based in Loudoun will be given priority in renting the theater, but any group can pay to use the venue, said the center's manager Jeff Stern. A number of groups, among them the Purcellville-based Aurora Studio Theatre, already have expressed interest in the space, he said.

The center will be the year-round home of Sweet's performing arts group, the Loudoun chapter of VSA Arts of Virginia. Its performance of the new musical about Loudoun farm life, "The Old Homeplace: A Loudoun Valley Tale," will run from March 7 through 16.

Those attending the center's Feb. 2 grand opening also will see parts of the show, as well as other musical and dance performers and a youth arts exhibition. The free program is from 2 to 5 p.m.

The Franklin Park Performing and Visual Arts Center is at 35441 Blueridgeview Lane, Purcellville. For more information about its offerings, call 703-777-0343.

Tagged: arts, Purcellville, Purcellville Arts Center

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