Faith Lutheran expands with new building

By Ashley Livingston

Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008 | midnight

There will be no more chapel services in the gym, drama productions on makeshift stages or audience members in folding chairs at Faith Lutheran Junior/Senior High School.

The school's long-awaited chapel/performing arts center is scheduled to open during the first week of October with an official dedication ceremony to follow on Nov. 9.

And it has proven to be worth the wait.

After breaking ground in March 2007, the almost-completed $11.5 million structure, which will house weekly church services as well as drama and music productions, boasts a sophisticated lighting and sound system, orchestra pit, large stage, dressing rooms, a set design area and a lobby that will feature student art.

Aside from the technological features, the new building will also provide much-appreciated extra space.

"I think everyone on campus would agree that scheduling was nothing less than a nightmare. Property at Faith Lutheran was in high demand," said Drama Director Erik Ball.

School Director Kevin Dunning said the new building should be the resolution to that problem in that it will enable all of the school's facilities to have more flexibility and will open up the student center and the gym for other uses.

And there is at least one group on campus that is more than ready to give up its former claim to gym space.

Once the chapel/theater opens, every Wednesday during the school year the space will host chapel services held by students in the Applied Christianity class.

Having previously made use of the gym or the student center, the students will finally have their own dedicated space to rehearse and create the skits they use to demonstrate each week's chapel theme.

"It will certainly be a much more worshipful space for chapel than the gymnasium was," Dunning said.

The new building also means big changes for the school's drama program.

The school's actors and actresses were previously restricted in what types of shows they could do because there was no dedicated space for performing arts.

"Like Peter Pan, there's no way we could've flown him in the gym, unless he was a truly stellar basketball player," Ball said with a laugh.

Drama student Kaitlin Barker, 17, said when students would do performances in the gym, because the space was used for other reasons, they couldn't set up until opening night.

"We would have wet paint on the set," she said. "This makes everything easier."

Now aside from the freedom to set up prior to the day of performance, the students can make use of the 25 fly rails that will allow them to use multiple set pieces, drops and painted scenery as well as bring down an actual curtain at the end of the show.

"It's just going to be no comparison," Ball said.

The students will be able to learn in a setting that rivals the stages on the Las Vegas Strip and Broadway, he said.

Barker is excited about the new possibilities.

The new theater will allow students to learn on a more professional basis that will include technical aspects, she said.

For their first performance in the new theater, the drama students plan to tackle a tough one.

They'll break in their new space with "Clue," a show Ball said they definitely could not have done in the gym.

"It will be a technical nightmare," he said. "The set will have a two-story house with eight rooms that will shift in and out like a giant transformer."

Drama student Timothy Heidorn, 17, said the show will be challenging because it will be the first done in that space and on top of that it's a show with six different endings.

But Ball's not too concerned.

"It's basically, instead of slowly entering a cold pool, we are swan-diving in," he said.

Ashley Livingston can be reached at 990-8925 or [email protected].