Glenn Massay Theater marks Valley milestone

We weren’t expecting what we found when we walked into the Glenn Massay Theater at Mat-Su College for the first time.

We’d seen the plans and heard the talk. But we were still sort of expecting to see something like a modern version of the Palmer High School Theater, or the Fred and Sarah Machetanz Theater.

A lot has changed since the first time we walked through the new theater at Mat-Su College about this time last year. There were no seats, no lighting, no walls, no finishing touches of any kind back then.

Still, from our first look at the orchestra pit we began to get excited.

This theater is not like any space that exists in the Valley now. It is a real, professional facility in every sense. The Glenn Massay Theater is a lot more comparable to the Wendy Williamson Auditorium, or one of the theaters in the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts, than any Valley venue.

From the lighting to the sound system to the seating, everything is brand new and state-of-the-art. This facility puts Mat-Su in a whole new league. It gives us a chance to hear music and lectures in Palmer we would have had to drive to Anchorage to take in previously. And it means our high school and college students will have a state-of-the-art venue in which to study the art theater of lighting and sound.

It’s a big step forward and one we’re happy to see our community take.

The space is already booked for a number of lectures, concerts, theater performances and fundraisers offered by various community organizations.

Sonja’s Studio of Dance was so ready that for the doors to open it planned to do a local Nutcracker performance at the theater in December 2014, before it became clear the facility wouldn’t be ready in time. They’d been preparing for months before learning the space would not open in time.

Whistling Swan productions, a local concert promoter whose shows usually occupy the much, much smaller Vagabond Blues coffee shop, has made the wager that its performers can fill this new 500-seat venue. The first — from the much beloved folk fusion band the Duhks — is scheduled for Sunday, and tickets are still available.

You might think with all the new facilities we’ve written about — schools built, roads put in service, big box stores constructed — we’d be immune and new milestones in our community’s development would no longer thrill us.

You’d be wrong.

To see Mat-Su take this step is a kin to watching our community transition from childhood to adolescents. We are growing up to be a place that attracts national acts and that can provide the proper setting for local ones.

Sure, we’ll probably still drive to Anchorage to take in a show now and again. But when we take in a show at the Massay we’ll do it with a whole lot more pride and with the expectation of spending intermission visiting with friends from across the Valley.

We’re taking in our first shows at the theater this weekend. We hope to see you there, too.