Triumvirate North’s new space north of Kenai offers local actors a bigger space and seemingly more opportunities.
The Alaska Children’s Institute for the Performing Arts, more widely known as Triumvirate Theatre, moved out of the Kenai Peninsula Mall in November 2013.
President of the non-profit Joe Rizzo said the theatre is a much different feeling than at the mall.
Rizzo: “You could kind of see the development of the space itself because we just added to it year after year after year. The nice thing about Triumvirate North is it was planned, it was built with a plan in mind, how is this facility going to run, what do we need. Basically we started with a big empty garage and so we were able to dictate exactly what the parameters are going to be physically in this space and that helps us a great deal.”
Rizzo said he thinks the larger space heightens the actors’ levels of performance.
Rizzo: “Even though the stage itself is really about the same as the space we had at the mall, but because of the high ceilings it kind of feels like a bigger room and we we’re a little nervous about that when we did Lame Ducks & Dark Horses this year because Lame Ducks & Dark Horses is in your face, close by, kind of cozy theater and we were afraid the big space would kind of break that intimacy off but it seemed to work out fine.”
The Grand Opening kicked off last October with the annual Lame Ducks and Dark Horses and the theatre’s newest production Annie will kick off at 7 o’clock this Friday, January 16.