Column: Behind the stage at Ellen Eccles Theatre
More than one million people have attended a performance or presentation at CacheARTS’s Ellen Eccles Theatre since it reopened in 1993. Logan only has 53,000 people, so I’m impressed.
I’m excited for the new collaboration between CacheARTS and The Utah Statesman. Four reviews during the next two months on their shows will be featured in our new Arts & Entertainment section.
To jumpstart this collaboration, on Feb. 26, I had the privilege of receiving a tour at the theater, located on 43 Ss Main St.
“100 plus performances every year — over 700 participants,” said director of marketing and media for CacheARTS Gavin Some — my tour guide. “Over two million in ticket sales.”
How does a theater in Logan do it? How are almost half of the patrons of its performances coming from outside of Cache County?
Not only is this theater resilient — surviving not just one but two fires — but it cares about the community. Through accessibility, outreach and intentional programming, the theater is proof the arts are ever alive in Cache County and through art, there is community.
The first stop of the tour was in the foyer leading up to the ticket booth, where Syme told me about the theater’s start.
George W. Thatcher Jr. and Brigham Guy Thatcher built the Thatcher Opera House from their vision of a grand theater. Eleven years after it burned down in 1912 — the first fire in our story — their dream became a reality in the Capitol Theater, the original name of the Ellen Eccles, which came from its rival in Salt Lake.
The foyer used to be completely outside, fully carpeted and difficult to maintain. Now inside, it fosters artwork provided by the Artist’s Gallery, located next door to the theater in the Pullman Center, who do different themed exhibits.
Syme and I walked up to the balcony of the theater, which showcases an art piece of a phoenix painted to look almost like a mosaic of tile instead of glass, mirrored by another on the other side.
“We have two different phoenixes,” Syme said. “The theater’s burned down a couple times, so the phoenix has kind of become our mascot.”
The second fire burned down most of the theater’s annex in 1990. It took over 320 volunteers and 40 businesses to clean up the mess.
Before the fire, the theater had ceased doing live performances.
“They had a big plywood board that covered the proscenium here and drapes over all the murals, and they would show films like ‘Star Wars’ in its original run,” Syme said. The old projector sits between the lower and upper level. “Now, we kind of use that area for employees to sit in and watch a show and eat a pizza.”
1993 marked the reopening of the theater after the second fire, and it was named the Ellen Eccles Theatre, focusing again on live performances. Despite finding its grounding, 2018 brought some renovations to the space.
“We had a bunch of great donors, state funding, to come in and help us redo all these motifs, walls — all that’s been restored,” Syme said.
We went down to the stage next, viewing the 1,100 seat theater from the audience’s perspective.
“Most touring shows require you to have at least 1,000 [seats], which makes it a little harder,” Syme said. “That’s why we’re kind of the main stop between Salt Lake and Idaho Falls.”
While some of the shows will only draw in about a 200-600 crowd, Syme said since the theater plans for this and the bigger headlining productions make up for the potential loss in profit.
“We have our big sellout shows, like the Broadway musicals or the big spectacles like ‘Champions of Magic,’” Syme said. “That kind of helps us supplement. It also allows us to do things, like two days ago, we had ‘A Bee Story’ here. We try to do an annual free family show, which is a great way to bring in folks who don’t really get to come to the theater often.”
In the back of the lower level, across from stage left, lies what Syme calls the fish bowl, a glass room that was originally made for nursing mothers and is now both a tech area and accessibility tool.
“We had an individual who had to stay in a bed, and they really wanted to come see — I believe it was ‘Come From Away,’” Syme said. “So, we were able to set up that spot so they could come in and stay in that bed and be able to still watch the show. One of my favorite things about working here is we’re able to really help folks, especially if they need accessibility.”
Next on the tour was the annex, off of stage right, where giant doors are used for semi-trucks to unload and load show equipment.
We went up three levels next, passing the floors with hair and makeup, dressing and green rooms. At the top was a rehearsal room, which the dancers of the next show ‘Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’ use for physical therapy.
Next to the rehearsal room was the pin rail, one of the only pieces left from the original building. Syme ensured I wasn’t afraid of heights before we went on the wood panel above the stage. I could see the rope and ladders stretching up from the bottom of the stage, and when he shone his phone flashlight on it all, it felt like I was standing on a piece of history.
When we went back down, we looked up at where we’d been, seeing the different set platforms in the ceiling.
“You can have somebody like Utah Festival Opera that is doing four to six different shows, but they’re doing two to three different shows every single day,” Syme said. “They can have the sets up in the ceiling and drop them down as needed.”
We stopped at a platform showing seats from the original theater. Comfort did not seem to be a priority back then.
The theater has an exciting season ahead, with their next three shows being ‘Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’ on March 3, Grand Kyiv Ballet’s ‘Swan Lake’ on March 8 and ‘Chicago the Musical’ on March 11-12.
“We have a programming committee, and we actually plan out events about 18 months to two years prior,” Syme said. “We want two or three big name shows and then fill in around what complements and what goes well. We really lucked out this year.”
A highlight from last year was the theater hosting the “Napoleon Dynamite” 20th anniversary viewing, since the film was shot in Preston. Jon Heder and Efren Ramirez went, and I tried not to be too jealous when Syme described them as fun people to hang out with.
“Our big focus moving forward is more and more Broadways,” Syme said. “We finally got to the point where there is a big enough Broadway audience here in Cache Valley and bringing in people from outside to make this a real, proper destination because our prices — they rival the ones at the Eccles down in Salt Lake.”
After our tour, I was able to talk with Wendi Hassan, executive director of the Cache Valley Center for the Arts.
“This is the people’s theater, so it’s actually owned by Logan City, and they help us make things affordable,” Hassan said.
Tickets are 25% off for students, which I was more than a little excited to hear.
“Art is the best of what people can do. I think sports are important, too, because there’s the physicality of sports, and then there’s the technical proficiency of the artistry of theater, music and dance,” Hassan said. “One of the nice things about this in contrast to sports is that you’re not rooting for a side usually, so everybody can win. I think we should have both.”
Hassan said CacheARTS includes classes, programs and shows for elementary school classes.
“Those are the most incredible things to see because you can hear the students from in here,” Hassan said. “Some of them, their parents would never take them for something because they don’t even know that it’s a thing, so when kids are coming in with their schools — that was really, really cool.”
For anyone looking for information on upcoming shows in the theater or more detail on the organization’s mission, visit www.cachearts.org/.
“We need an excuse to come together and be together, especially right now when so many things pull us in different directions,” Hassan said. “You’re sitting shoulder to shoulder with somebody who the algorithms would never connect you with, and you build community. We need it to experience an emotional arc together that’s independent of where we would take ourselves.”