A city manager said a beloved local theater would close. Then came the outrage.

Early last month, it seemed all but certain the West Valley Performing Arts Center was hurtling toward its final curtain call.

Those who operate the venue say they were informed by West Valley City Manager Ifo Pili that the facility would permanently close after the completion of the 2024 season.

Now, a group of 2,500 advocates — consisting of residents, performers and production staff — is on the cusp of saving the center.

Among the members of the group called Keep West Valley Performing is Morgan Fenner, an actress and third-generation West Valley City resident who grew up going to the center when it was called Harman Hall. It’s the venue that inspired her to be a performer, and the possibility of losing it, she said, was heartbreaking.

“It would just be so detrimental to the theater community,” Fenner said, “the arts community and the residents in West Valley.”

But Fenner and others may have steered the venue toward a brighter future.

West Valley City Council members and city staffers are evaluating a proposal from the group that would keep the center open as an independent community theater. The plan calls for an initial infusion of public funding from Utah’s second-largest city.

Fenner said the proposal has made her feel more “hopeful,” but she’s not completely relieved because “there’s a lot of work ahead.”

Currently, the city-owned West Valley Performing Arts Center is operated by West Valley Arts, a nonprofit run by city staff. Pili serves as chair of the organization.

The City Council is set to vote next week on a resolution to support the transition of West Valley Arts into an independent “community-based organization.” The new nonprofit would have a new board and structure, according to a news release from Keep West Valley Performing.

If the proposal is approved, the release states, West Valley City will “provide a pre-defined subsidy” to demonstrate its “unwavering commitment to the arts.”

City spokesperson Sam Johnson confirmed an initial subsidy is on the table, but said the city would not provide any ongoing funding beyond that. The resolution on the agendas for Tuesday’s City Council study and regular meetings says any subsidy the city provides would end Dec. 31, 2025.

The proposal would essentially transfer ownership of the performing arts building to the new nonprofit organization, including all operations like finances, marketing, fundraising and even some city staff. The city would also turn over the current West Valley Arts Foundation to the new entity so it could be used for fundraising.

“We’re very excited about the prospect that this group could keep the theater going,” Johnson said, “and find ways to grow it and develop it and fundraise for it to make it a vibrant theater here in West Valley City.”

West Valley Arts started a theater program at the venue in 2019. The performing arts center opened in 1998 as Harman Theatre, and housed Hale Centre Theatre until 2017.

This year’s theater season at the West Valley Performing Arts Center includes popular titles like “A Tale of Two Cities,” “Shakespeare in Love,” “The Lightning Thief,” “Legally Blonde” and “Jekyll & Hyde.”

The last scheduled show of the season is scheduled for Nov. 2. Under the proposal on the table, after that show closes, the city staff leading the theater would be transferred to the new independent organization.

From stage to City Hall

Kate Rufener, who has a background in theater fundraising, is one of the leaders of the community group behind the proposal to keep the theater operating. She learned of plans to close the center shortly after she had finished directing “Shakespeare in Love” at the venue on May 4.

“We closed the show,” she said, “the Saturday before we got the press release (announcing the planned closure).”

Rufener, who said she has worked at theaters all across the country, said she couldn’t believe city officials would think to close the theater, especially given the “number of awards that it’s won and the talent that it attracts.”

Many of those who were outraged over the announcement of the closure mentioned the theater program’s growth over the past few years and its multiple awards, like those it received from Best of SLC. The venue, Rufener said, has also been nominated for awards alongside the Eccles Theater in downtown Salt Lake City and the Hale Centre Theatre in Sandy.

After getting the closure news, Rufener said her first thought was to call John Sweeney, the theater’s contracted artistic producer. Together, they decided they needed to get the news out, so they created a Facebook group. By the end of the night, the group had 1,000 members.

Then, Rufener said she and Sweeney started looking into fundraising materials Rufener had from previous endeavors, contacting lobbyist friends and putting together a strategy to save the center. Three days after the closure was announced, she said, the group had 70 volunteers.

Rufener said it’s been a “lightning-fast” campaign that speaks to the theater having always been a “person-first program.”

Over several weeks, Rufener said the group met with West Valley City officials, including Pili, contending the city had insufficient reason to close the facility.

In a Facebook post from the city, “structural issues and the high cost of repairs” were listed as the reasons for the theater’s closure.

“That’s just not true. The building does not require the amount of repairs that the city understood” it would need, Rufener said. “The state of the building is great; it’s in fantastic shape.”

Some of the structural issues listed weren’t actually structural, like a $2 million repair to the stage, Rufener said.

“That just isn’t necessary for the structure of the building,” she said. “Nor is it necessary for the art.”

On Thursday, Johnson remained steadfast in the position that it is not financially viable for the city to operate the center under the current system. Documents attached to Tuesday’s council agenda say the structure needs “significant repairs” and the center is incurring large operational losses.

What advocates say makes the center worth saving

Rufener said the history of the building, how many people got their start in the space and how the venue operates are all factors that make saving the building important.

“A lot of other theaters, you kind of get the idea that maybe the set piece or the lighting trick is more important … [and] this theater does not operate that way,” she said. “Everything is centered around the people.”

Sweeney, the producer, said he’s directed more shows on the West Valley Performing Arts Center stage than anyone, and he loves how the stage is set up.

“A little over 500 feet in the round,” he said, “it allows an intimacy to the storytelling that we do that is really unmatched.”

Other stages, Sweeney said, don’t “invite you into the story, and that’s what our stage does.”

And Bryan Hall, guitarist of Bay of Pigs, said places like the performing arts center are important to creatives like those on his team. His group put together the Pleasant Grove Rock Opera, which follows the story of a Utah County teen’s death in the 70s. Early versions of the rock musical were staged at the center in 2022.

In a statement, Hall said the center is “somewhere independent shows like ours could rent out and get the full theater experience.”

The Keep West Valley Performing group has attended the three City Council meetings that have been held since the planned closure was announced, flooding the council with feedback during public comment periods.

Rufener said because the group wasn’t “there to lecture” the council, but came with ideas and solutions, the meetings were productive.

The arts in places like West Valley City

Although West Valley City is Utah’s second-largest city, it is often dinged in online surveys for not having enough to offer when it comes to arts and culture. If the performing arts center is closed, the Utah Cultural Celebration Center will be the only remaining arts and culture venue in West Valley City.

Clark Bullen, a Murray resident who is active in the theater community, said his wife has performed at the West Valley Performing Arts Center and that he loves going to the venue.

What the theater has been able to do with the quality of its productions, he said, is a “miracle” and compares it to “a rose in the desert.”

Bullen isn’t a stranger to fighting for the arts. He currently serves on a committee to help revitalize historic downtown Murray and has worked to help save the Murray Theater, a venue that is being restored and renovated after it was “on the chopping block,” Bullen said.

The closure of performing arts venues tend to happen in clusters, Bullen said. Once one venue goes to make room in the budget or clear space for another use, he said, officials in other cities feel like they can do the same.

“Once you lose the arts, you lose the flavor that helps make a community more palatable, that makes it more inviting,” he said, “and it’s part of the whole mix on what makes a community worth staying in.”

While the City Council is set to vote Tuesday on the resolution to keep the theater operating under a different organization, negotiations over what exactly would go in a future agreement between the city and the new, independent organization are ongoing. For example, the parties will still have to decide how large the city’s subsidy will be.