History
-James Parker
The Children’s Theatre began it’s long journey in Bellevue, Washington where I grew up. Bellevue at the time was a small suburb of Seattle just across from Lake Washington. My parents Tom and Joanne Parker moved to the northwest immediately after they were married in 1965. My mother, Joanne had always been involved in the arts, being one of the original dancers in Virginia Tanner’s dance group and continued to dance at the University of Utah until she married.
My father was intelligent and had a leaning towards music playing all sorts of instruments from the French Horn to an upright Bass. The two met East High School and it seems to me that the loved each other from the beginning, and always have since then. In Washington they focused on creating a life for the rapidly growing family with my father going to law school and my mother consumed with running the household. They stayed creative and were always dragging us around to experience the theatre and other cultural events. Many years later their friends figured out that my parents had some unique talents for theatre, music and dance.
By the time 1980 rolled around their friends and neighbors were supporting a community theatre with Mom and Pop at the head of the decision making. My Mom and Dad produced Sleeping Beauty Persian Version, Wind in the Willows, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and other plays geared toward younger audiences. They were having fun, but their destiny became more clear when a General Manager job opened up in Salt Lake City.
The position was for Promised Valley Playhouse (PVP as we called it), a theatre venue owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Almost as soon as we arrived, Tom and Joanne started working on opening a small stage at PVP called Plum Alley after the small alley behind the theatre. They also continued the tradition of large musicals in the main theatre and The Little Bowery, a 175 seat black box. But it was Plum Alley where my brother and three sisters called home for next few years. We loved to perform on that little stage and it was at Plum Alley where we got the theatre bug and our began our training in the arts. Unfortunately after three years of coming to Salt Lake, The LDS Church decided to no longer operate the theatre and my parents were faced with a decision of whether to go back to Seattle or to start their own theatre.
The Children’s Theatre began it’s long journey in Bellevue, Washington where I grew up. Bellevue at the time was a small suburb of Seattle just across from Lake Washington. My parents Tom and Joanne Parker moved to the northwest immediately after they were married in 1965. My mother, Joanne had always been involved in the arts, being one of the original dancers in Virginia Tanner’s dance group and continued to dance at the University of Utah until she married.
My father was intelligent and had a leaning towards music playing all sorts of instruments from the French Horn to an upright Bass. The two met East High School and it seems to me that the loved each other from the beginning, and always have since then. In Washington they focused on creating a life for the rapidly growing family with my father going to law school and my mother consumed with running the household. They stayed creative and were always dragging us around to experience the theatre and other cultural events. Many years later their friends figured out that my parents had some unique talents for theatre, music and dance.
By the time 1980 rolled around their friends and neighbors were supporting a community theatre with Mom and Pop at the head of the decision making. My Mom and Dad produced Sleeping Beauty Persian Version, Wind in the Willows, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and other plays geared toward younger audiences. They were having fun, but their destiny became more clear when a General Manager job opened up in Salt Lake City.
The position was for Promised Valley Playhouse (PVP as we called it), a theatre venue owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Almost as soon as we arrived, Tom and Joanne started working on opening a small stage at PVP called Plum Alley after the small alley behind the theatre. They also continued the tradition of large musicals in the main theatre and The Little Bowery, a 175 seat black box. But it was Plum Alley where my brother and three sisters called home for next few years. We loved to perform on that little stage and it was at Plum Alley where we got the theatre bug and our began our training in the arts. Unfortunately after three years of coming to Salt Lake, The LDS Church decided to no longer operate the theatre and my parents were faced with a decision of whether to go back to Seattle or to start their own theatre.
They looked at different cities to bring their theatre and start up, even Branson, MI which at the time was just starting to excel as a destination for entertainment in the midwest. After battling back and forth, they agreed to stay and continue with entertaining the audiences of Salt Lake City. Since most of the support they had at PVP was musical theatre performers, that is where they started, producing their first production as The Salt Lake Repertory Theatre (more commonly known as City Rep). We didn’t have our own theatre so in the first years they rented out Abravanel Hall, The Capitol Theatre, and Kingsbury Hall. The first production was “Cats in Concert” at Abravanel Hall. They had near sell out performances and it was a huge hit, so they continued mounting huge productions in the large venues of the city. Tom and Joanne’s hearts however were still with children’s theatre, but they were sidetracked for now.
They opened a small 100 seat theatre in the old ZCMI Mall, which turned out to be a huge success producing the now commonly produced Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to sold out crowds. This was before “Joseph” was even on the radar of the other producers in the state. It seemed like we were producing plays and musicals all the time. We operated an amphitheater during one summer below Abravanel Hall, producing 11 different productions in one summer! I was only 12, and my brother Ben was 16 but we ran all the lighting and sound for the theatre and everything just became a blur that year.
The theatre fell on difficult times while producing for the large venues, while the ZCMI theatre was really holding everything together. Eventually the theatre could no longer continue it’s lease at ZCMI or gather the overhead needed to rent the theaters in the valley. Off my parents went looking for a theatre to keep their dream alive. My Dad showed us some possibilities, one being the old Art Deco Centre Theatre on Broadway and State Street which was demolished only a year or less later, and the Utah Theatre at 148 S. Main Street. When we went to the Utah Theatre it smelled of buttered popcorn and soda and was so dusty and dirty, none of us could quite imagine performing there. I can still remember walking down to the dressing rooms in the downstairs theatre on that tour with flashlights and seeing a good foot to foot and a half of water. My Dad told us it was at about three feet deep when he visited a week ago.
They opened a small 100 seat theatre in the old ZCMI Mall, which turned out to be a huge success producing the now commonly produced Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to sold out crowds. This was before “Joseph” was even on the radar of the other producers in the state. It seemed like we were producing plays and musicals all the time. We operated an amphitheater during one summer below Abravanel Hall, producing 11 different productions in one summer! I was only 12, and my brother Ben was 16 but we ran all the lighting and sound for the theatre and everything just became a blur that year.
The theatre fell on difficult times while producing for the large venues, while the ZCMI theatre was really holding everything together. Eventually the theatre could no longer continue it’s lease at ZCMI or gather the overhead needed to rent the theaters in the valley. Off my parents went looking for a theatre to keep their dream alive. My Dad showed us some possibilities, one being the old Art Deco Centre Theatre on Broadway and State Street which was demolished only a year or less later, and the Utah Theatre at 148 S. Main Street. When we went to the Utah Theatre it smelled of buttered popcorn and soda and was so dusty and dirty, none of us could quite imagine performing there. I can still remember walking down to the dressing rooms in the downstairs theatre on that tour with flashlights and seeing a good foot to foot and a half of water. My Dad told us it was at about three feet deep when he visited a week ago.
In the fall of 1988 we started the move to the Utah Theatre, cleaning, painting, sweeping endlessly and trying to get rid of that darn popcorn smell! We operated two theaters, the downstairs theatre of 700 seats, later we converted it to a 500 seat theatre, and the upstairs theatre of 350 seats. The downstairs was the musical theatre stage and in 1989 the upstairs became the children’s theatre. This is when the future of children’s theatre in Salt Lake started to become much clearer. Our family had always loved children’s theatre and it felt as though we were heading back to a home of familiarity and comfort. In the years that followed, the theater's focus shifted from musicals and concerts to what was happening with the children’s theatre. It was becoming very popular, we started to bring in school buses on field trips and establish the drama school. The popularity of the children’s theatre started to spill over into the downstairs theatre with performances of Phantom of the Opera and Sleeping Beauty on the downstairs stage.
Just when our success was looking up, the Utah Theatre was purchased and the new landlord gave very short notice to vacate (just about a month). The quest began to preserve the Children’s Theatre and it’s ability to reach the young audiences that were now used to coming downtown and coming to “Their Theatre”. There was never a question about whether to stay in the downtown area, it was just a matter of where? My father found the old Bowers Furniture store/warehouse at 638 South State Street and even though we all groaned when we saw how much had to be done, we new that this ramshackle building could work. Why wouldn’t it work? We had operated in so many different spaces up to this point, but this one had to be completely converted to a theatre.
Just when our success was looking up, the Utah Theatre was purchased and the new landlord gave very short notice to vacate (just about a month). The quest began to preserve the Children’s Theatre and it’s ability to reach the young audiences that were now used to coming downtown and coming to “Their Theatre”. There was never a question about whether to stay in the downtown area, it was just a matter of where? My father found the old Bowers Furniture store/warehouse at 638 South State Street and even though we all groaned when we saw how much had to be done, we new that this ramshackle building could work. Why wouldn’t it work? We had operated in so many different spaces up to this point, but this one had to be completely converted to a theatre.
We tore down the ceiling which was packed with mountains of rockwool insulation. It was literally an ocean of rockwool two to three feet deep. Many volunteers came and shoveled and shoveled and shoveled. I remember my sister Amy and I with goggles, masks and jumpsuits shoveling the last section and becoming delirious with laughter at what we were doing. “This is totally vile!” Amy said muffled through her mask, I couldn’t have agreed more, and I couldn’t stop laughing. We built a stage, seating risers, bathrooms, lobby, reinforced the building with earthquake straps and pillars and many other structural and aesthetic details all while trying to keep the audience, producing the plays and selling tickets. I’m not really sure how we survived that one!
The thing that was amazing was that we did it almost only with the help of our family alone and some dedicated friends. The 638 building turned out to be a great place to create. it was more or less a big box and since all us kids were producing the shows, we were given a great deal of creative freedom from our Father. The musicals were mostly a thing of the past, but my oldest sister Jenni who was artistic directing the musicals and concerts was still enthusiastic about producing concerts.
Unfortunately the concerts sort of fizzled, which ended up being a good thing for her since Jenni wound up at Hale Centre becoming a favorite performer and musical director. The theatre really started to generate some great momentum but the building was never ours, so it became difficult to invest money, time and effort into it. My Father had initially said that we would not be in 638 for more than five to seven years, but it turned out we were there the longest of any other space, fifteen years. In 2001 I left the theatre after suffering a major burn out and moved to Seattle with my wife Emily.
The thing that was amazing was that we did it almost only with the help of our family alone and some dedicated friends. The 638 building turned out to be a great place to create. it was more or less a big box and since all us kids were producing the shows, we were given a great deal of creative freedom from our Father. The musicals were mostly a thing of the past, but my oldest sister Jenni who was artistic directing the musicals and concerts was still enthusiastic about producing concerts.
Unfortunately the concerts sort of fizzled, which ended up being a good thing for her since Jenni wound up at Hale Centre becoming a favorite performer and musical director. The theatre really started to generate some great momentum but the building was never ours, so it became difficult to invest money, time and effort into it. My Father had initially said that we would not be in 638 for more than five to seven years, but it turned out we were there the longest of any other space, fifteen years. In 2001 I left the theatre after suffering a major burn out and moved to Seattle with my wife Emily.
I went to school and worked and had some kids. It was a much needed rest after doing nothing but eating, drinking and sleeping theatre. While I did miss the theatre, it took me about 5 years to realize that the children’s theatre was one of my favorite places to be. The next years ahead were very rough for my parents, the building was having major issues with the roof,heating and cooling. My mother was desperate to have a clean, comfortable space for the theatre school students and 638 was not cutting it. Joanne went to the Redevelopment Agency of Salt Lake City and they agreed to let us use the old Ballet West training center at 237 South State Street. It was also good to have a backup in case anything might happened down the line.
In the winter of 2007 something did happen, my Father was vacationing in St. George by himself when he didn’t feel very good, he checked himself into the ER and it turned out that he had pneumonia. When they investigated further it turned out to be pleurisy and he had a great deal of fluid surrounding his lungs. As the doctors investigated even further they found his lung had collapsed. It was about at this time that our family knew that if he returned to running the theatre, he might be running himself into the grave.
My siblings discussed all the alternatives, from shutting it down (this option was darn near close to happening) to asking others outside of the family or one of the siblings to carry it on. In July of 2007, my wife Emily and I decided to act quick to preserve the Children’s Theatre. I came down and started a new non-profit organization now known as Children’s Theatre and School of the Arts. This organization and myself would be the next generation to provide children’s theatre in Salt Lake City.
I quickly assessed the situation and made the decision to consolidate the business and vacate 638 which now was in horrible condition with no hope of a long term lease and no commitment from the landlord to keep the building updated. It was literally raining inside that building and was very tattered, that with the location, it was really not an ideal place to bring children to the city. Now we reside solely in the 237 building which is very small, but if you have read the beginning of the story you will see that we are quite comfortable with change.
Our first year with the changes have been rough, but the organization is on the right path to the stardom. That said as we approach twenty-five years, we feel it is time to make plans for a permanent home that can serve more children with all the amenities they deserve. The Children’s Theatre will be a beacon for the children of Utah to walk through our doors, feel it belongs to them and where we can continue to inspire children to cultivate creativity through the theatrical arts.
My siblings discussed all the alternatives, from shutting it down (this option was darn near close to happening) to asking others outside of the family or one of the siblings to carry it on. In July of 2007, my wife Emily and I decided to act quick to preserve the Children’s Theatre. I came down and started a new non-profit organization now known as Children’s Theatre and School of the Arts. This organization and myself would be the next generation to provide children’s theatre in Salt Lake City.
I quickly assessed the situation and made the decision to consolidate the business and vacate 638 which now was in horrible condition with no hope of a long term lease and no commitment from the landlord to keep the building updated. It was literally raining inside that building and was very tattered, that with the location, it was really not an ideal place to bring children to the city. Now we reside solely in the 237 building which is very small, but if you have read the beginning of the story you will see that we are quite comfortable with change.
Our first year with the changes have been rough, but the organization is on the right path to the stardom. That said as we approach twenty-five years, we feel it is time to make plans for a permanent home that can serve more children with all the amenities they deserve. The Children’s Theatre will be a beacon for the children of Utah to walk through our doors, feel it belongs to them and where we can continue to inspire children to cultivate creativity through the theatrical arts.
