Aug 26, 2022

ACT Friends and Family,

We are thrilled to be finishing our first full successful season at Albany Civic Theater since the lockdown and heading into the fall of our second season. We continue to celebrate live theater in the mid valley and enjoy partnering with our local community organizations like the NAACP, C.H.A.N.C.E Recovery and the Albany Downtown Association’s Revitalization Awards. On Saturday, October 22nd, we will host our annual awards celebration for the first time in two years. As an all volunteer live theater venue we are ecstatic to bring our community together to celebrate our community accomplishments since the fall of 2019. We are looking forward to the surprises the Big Night committee is planning for us.

Looking back before the pandemic we had well attended shows like Mamma Mia!, Tuna Does Vegas!, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, and Squirrel Lake. During the shutdown we produced 3 radio dramas and they are still available to listen to on our website. You can go to this link to listen to them ACT Radio Shows. 

This Season we have done 7 shows including the special Broadway review, All Together Now and a Youth Camp production of Disney’s Frozen Jr. We’ve done 60 performances this season and had almost 4000 people in attendance. In addition to our live performances we have added live-stream and on demand broadcast of our shows when available for folks who can’t attend in person. 

The upcoming season will be filled with exciting events such as 2 different Holiday fundraisers. One will be geared towards families and the other will be a hilarious performance of live improv and comedy geared toward a more mature audience. In addition Albany Civic Theater has received a grant to support our Diversity and Inclusion efforts and will be establishing a series of events and performance spaces for folks in the LGBTQIA+ community and those persons with disabilities. This Grant was funded by the Oregon Community Foundation. We hope you will be able to join us for an upcoming show.

Recently we elected our new board members to serve during our 2022-2023 season. I am enthusiastic about the new board and cannot wait to get down to work on all of our new and ongoing projects. During the pandemic Albany Civic Theater was awarded an endowment fund that will help us for years to come in making improvements to our building. Currently we are working on structural improvements, completing the renovation of our backstage area and updating our Marquee. Being a historic building we will be working closely with the City of Albany to make sure we are in compliance with Albany’s historic preservation program.

We continue to need help from our community in many areas. In addition to folks to help us with set building, painting, costuming and lighting, we are looking for folks to help with fundraising, facilities oversight and various publicity duties. If you are interested in volunteering at ACT you can contact our volunteer coordinator at volunteeermanager@albanycivic.org. 

I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to all of our patrons, volunteers and board members who have helped navigate these times and supported our efforts to bring live theater back to Albany. 

Season tickets are currently available here. If you’d like to donate to Albany Civic Theater, there are opportunities here. See you at the theater!

Johanna Spencer

President of the Board of Directors of Albany Civic Theater