Page 44 - Flathead Beacon // 12.17.14

44 | DECEMBER 17, 201&4 FLATHEADBEACON.COM ARTS
Diana Lamers helps Kira Shanks with her hair in a makeshift greenroom before a performance of “The King and I” with the Whitefish Theatre Company.
GREG LINDSTROM FLATHEAD BEACON
EXPANDING ON GENEROSITY WHITEFISH THEATRE COMPANY RECEIVES $250,000 GRANT TOWARD BUILDING EXPANSION PROJECT
ENTERTAINMENT
BFy MOLLY PRIDDY of the Beacon
or an actor to act, he or she must pos-
sess passion, drive, talent and the need to express the words and thoughts in the script.
While it’s theoretically possible to act anywhere and in any situation, it’s helpful for the actor to have a stage on which to perform for an audience. At the Whitefish Theatre Company, the talent is burgeoning, but space is not.
“We are so out of room,” Gayle McLaren, managing director at WTC,
said. “We’re planning an expansion.” The expansion is expected to cost $1.25 million, and the theater company began a five-year capital campaign in 2012 to reach that goal. Last week, the company announced a huge step for- ward: a $250,000 challenge grant from
the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.
A challenge grant means that in or- der to receive the quarter-million-dollar donation, the WTC must get matching
donations, McLaren said.
“Getting the Murdock grant was just
huge, and we have to match that,” she said.
WTC has been performing in the Flathead for decades, and moved into its space at the O’Shaughnessy Cen- ter in downtown Whitefish when the building was made possible through a major community fundraising effort in 1998; a large donation from the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Foundation was key in laying the foundation.
That was also a $250,000 matching grant, and McLaren said it took about nine months to earn the matching funds from donations.
Now, 16 years later, the O’Shaughn-
essy Center serves as one of the most popular and most used arts facilities in the valley. Not only does the theater com- pany take root and practice there, but the community also rents out the facility for several events throughout the year.
“There are so many nonprofits that want to rent the building,” McLaren said. “There’s just a demand for space.”
One of the biggest draws to the cen- ter is the high-definition projector, she said, which brings in groups wanting to show films and documentaries.
And such is the demand for the
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