Arden Theatre to expand into nearby building

The Arden Theatre Company, one of Center City's major stages, will expand into a building three doors from its current space on Second Street, just north of Market, where it will focus on its programs for students and children and install an 80-seat theater and rehearsal hall.

The $5.8 million expansion into a 22,000-square-foot building is "a huge step for the Arden," producing artistic director Terrence J. Nolen said at the announcement Thursday afternoon attended by Mayor Nutter and theater supporters.

Nolen made the announcement in the gutted new space, which was two buildings when built in the 1940s after fire ruined an earlier structure. The two-story building with a full basement had housed several enterprises, most recently a lighting store, and before that an appliance warehouse.

The announcement comes as the Arden nails down the details of its 25th season, which begins in September, a roster of seven plays that includes two family productions. The company, which has staged 34 new plays and many others since its founding, began in 1988, in rented space on the small fifth-floor playing area at Walnut Street Theatre, then grew to fit the space called St. Stephen's Theater on 10th Street, where Lantern Theater now operates.

Seventeen years ago, the Arden moved into the building it constructed in Old City, where it continues to thrive. "The Arden is a shining example of the transformational impact that the arts can have on a neighborhood and a city," Nutter said Thursday. He cited the company's "dedication to local actors, teachers, artists, and playwrights" and said it was "especially committed to kids in the city."

The current Arden location has two stages at 40 N. Second St., and will remain the company's primary performance space, Nolen said. The new space, to be called the Hamilton Family Arts Center, will house the Arden's theater education programs, which have grown exponentially in the four years since they began, to an enrollment of almost 2,000 students.

Programs for students ages 3 through 18 are now held in any space the Arden can find in its building, where the company often rehearses one show while another is on stage, or has two productions running at once. So classes and workshops - and a summer camp - may convene in the green room where actors lounge between scenes, in dressing rooms, even in a vestibule, and at nearby rented spaces. Students learn everything from stage makeup to musical theater to improvisation.

"These kids are what this building is about. This building is an investment in our future - their future," Nolen said as about 30 students from various Arden projects surrounded him and his wife, Arden managing director and cofounder Amy L. Murphy.

The Hamilton Family Arts Center is named for a $1 million gift from philanthropist Dorrance H. "Dodo" Hamilton. Her son, N. Peter Hamilton, and Lee van de Veldt head the expansion capital campaign, which has raised $3.5 million so far. That sum includes $500,000 from Arden board members and $1 million from a Pennsylvania grant supported by Gov. Corbett, plus donations from foundations, corporations, and people.

The Hamilton Center, which the Arden hopes to open a year from now, will also house space for the company's new-play development work, particularly a project called the Writers' Room, a playwright residency program.

The space will contain an 80-seat flexible theater and a state-of-the-art shop for building sets and props, now constructed in an alleyway building behind the Arden, where it rents space.