YAKIMA — The past and the future are plainly visible at the Capitol Theatre, as the first phase of an expansion project that began in September nears completion.
You can stand on the concrete floor of what will soon be the new 500-seat Black Box Theater and look outside to the site of a future patio dining area. Or you can walk past the construction crew back through the doors into a main theater building that, despite a devastating 1975 fire, has been the core of Yakima’s downtown since 1920.
It’s a time of transition for the theater, one marked by a clear line of demarcation between old and new. Though physically connected, the new addition housing the Black Box Theater and the backstage production center is modern looking and utilitarian compared to the grand old dame that is the Capitol proper.
“By design, we’re making it very contemporary,” Capitol Theatre CEO Steve Caffery said. “We don’t want it to emulate the Capitol Theatre.”
The $15 million expansion, made necessary in part by the increasing space demands of Broadway-style productions, will allow for more complete staging of large shows. For instance, shows like “Annie,” which ran this year, had to be altered from their full-scale Broadway production because the sets and equipment couldn’t all fit backstage — or in some case even fit through the doors.
“The shows we’re doing now are getting bigger,” Caffery said. “Up until now we’ve been able to stage about 70 percent (of a show like that). Now we’ll be able to fit it all in.”
The expansion is slated for completion by the end of July.
One of the other main drivers of the expansion is that the Capitol’s core audience is aging, and the theater organization is looking for ways to reach a younger generation weaned on MTV and YouTube instead of “Camelot.” The Capitol’s “Broadway On the Edge” series earlier this year created some buzz and will be expanded. The next batch of “edgy” shows will include the sketch comedy troupe “Second City” in the Black Box Theater, Caffery said.
“They’re reaching out to a younger audience with their Edge Series and the Black Box Theater,” said Jamie Lee Stickel, programs director for the Committee for Downtown Yakima. “That’s really important.”
The adjacent, Capitol Theatre-owned Wilson Building, once slated for demolition, is now part of the transition, too. The 1902 building will be gutted and its exterior will be rehabilitated. It will house a new box office, staff offices and, Caffery hopes, a European-style cafe that will offer beer and wine as well as coffee.
“We want you to come down and have a glass of wine before the show or a cup of coffee and dessert after the show,” he said.
During a recent breakfast presentation to members of the Committee for Downtown Yakima, Caffery said he expected the expansion project and additional theater will double the Capitol Theater’s contribution to the local economy, from $15 million a year to $30 million.
The goal of the Black Box Theater, he said, is to provide a more diverse and affordable menu of events for local residents.
Caffery told merchants he’s hoping that the corner cafe at Yakima Avenue and North Third Street will be a Starbucks and become a popular gathering spot both during the day and in the evening.
That mingling of culture and commerce is critical to the vitality of any downtown, Stickel said. It gives people “an experience,” rather than just another night of shopping or entertainment, one apart from the other.
“So maybe instead of just appealing to one person in a four-person family, you can appeal to the whole family,” she said.
About $4.25 million remains to be raised, and that will all come from donations and sponsorships. About $9 million of the more than $11 million already raised has come from state, local and federal funding.
The theater’s reliance on help from the Yakima community is another case of past and future coming together, Caffery said. The community responded to that 1975 fire with a $700,000 fundraising campaign that had it reopened by 1978. Now the theater is calling again on its audience to help keep it going, he said.
That dedication says much about the theater’s role in local culture, said Noel Moxley, executive director of the Yakima Symphony Orchestra, which plays concerts at the Capitol. Though she wishes it would have included a larger orchestra pit, Moxley said the expansion will help the theater maintain that role.
“The Capitol Theatre over the years has been the anchor of arts and culture in downtown Yakima,” she said. “Keeping historic buildings like that, that are economic drivers, cultural drivers, is vital to a community.”
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