Jackson, Wyoming, has Center for the Arts. Aspen, Colorado, has Wheeler Opera House. Ketchum, Idaho, has Sun Valley Pavilion. Truckee/North Lake Tahoe? A patchwork of borrowed spaces and makeshift stages — or a drive to Reno.

“We have world-class filmmakers and musicians and incredible acting talent and also students that are coming out of our high school that are going on to some of the best art schools in the country, if not in the world,” said Kellie Cutler, program manager at Truckee Cultural District, Nevada County Arts. “But we do not have a state-of-the-art performing arts center.”

The appetite for a true performing arts venue is undeniable, yet the region has repeatedly stumbled where others have succeeded. Proposals have been approved, funding sought, spaces identified — but hardly any actual spaces have materialized. Now, with one venue having recently closed its doors, the question feels sharper than ever: Why can’t Truckee/North Lake Tahoe build — and sustain — the high-quality performing arts venue that the region longs for?

Art Finds a Way

Still, the lack of a venue hasn’t stopped the creative community from performing.

The area boasts a vibrant performing arts scene, even if sometimes underground, with organizations producing theater, music, dance, film, and more. Yet many of these groups operate without access to a dedicated performance venue.

Instead, performances happen wherever space can be found. Be it at the Salty Gebhardt Amphitheater in Truckee Regional Park, in high school auditoriums in Truckee and North Lake Tahoe, or at the Truckee Community Arts Center. While these spaces provide valuable access, none were built specifically for the demands of live performance. They lack the acoustics needed for orchestral music, the backstage space for full-length plays, or the lighting and sound systems required for professional-level dance or film. And still, the fixes are far from elegant.

“In our Nutcracker, the middle curtain closes and the guys in their tuxedos have to literally un-Velcro the first act’s set design and walk it into the middle school hallway. This should be a button that gets pushed,” said Christin Hanna, founder and artistic director of Lake Tahoe Dance Collective. “It shouldn’t have to be this hard. And so, personally, I’m really facing burnout.”

To be fair, the region offers plenty of great spots to consume live music — often for free — including concerts at the Crystal Bay Casino and outdoor summer music series in local parks. But what’s missing is a versatile, purpose-built venue that can support a broader spectrum of the performing arts: theater productions, film screenings, orchestral concerts, dance performances.

Years of Planning, Still No Stage

The limitations of the existing spaces aren’t lost on the region’s arts leaders, or audiences. But for some, the reason we don’t have this space already is straightforward. “All these ski towns built performing arts centers to attract people during the summer. Well, we have a lake, so we don’t have a performing arts center. It’s literally that simple,” Hanna said.

Still, a high-quality performing arts venue is a dream that has been on the community’s cultural to-do list for more than two decades. It was, and is, on Hanna’s too.

Around 2006, a group of local leaders and arts advocates formed an arts advocacy group made up of members from Truckee and North Lake Tahoe, including Cutler and Hanna. “That arts council was really driven towards exploring the potential for a state-of-the-art performing arts space in the region,” Cutler said.

At the same time, Truckee-Donner Recreation and Park District surveyed the community about whether it preferred a performing arts facility or a new pool. When the bond measure ultimately funded the pool, arts advocate Keith Vogt took the performing arts concept to Placer County and launched the Stages at Northstar project.

Proposed for 22 acres near the entrance to Northstar California Resort, Stages at Northstar included plans for a 150-seat studio theater, 150-seat multi-use room for visual arts and special events, 650-seat proscenium theater, and 2,500-seat outdoor amphitheater. The project secured a long-term sublease from Vail Resorts and began fundraising, with an estimated $60 million needed for construction and endowment. Despite early momentum, the project stalled and never broke ground. In 2021, the Truckee Regional Arts Foundation, the nonprofit responsible for the project, officially withdrew its application, citing fundraising challenges and impacts from the pandemic.

In 2019, hopes resurfaced with Truckee Art Haus & Cinema in the Railyard development. The initial proposal called for a 12,200-square-foot venue with three auditoriums and the option for performing arts, a meeting hall, and a bar. The Truckee town council approved the project, but financing became a barrier — specifically, a $250,000 traffic mitigation fee.

Meanwhile on the North Shore in Tahoe City, similar efforts also stalled. In 2017, the nonprofit Siren Arts set its sights on transforming the vacant fire station in Tahoe City into a performing arts venue. By 2019, the group had submitted a formal proposal for the space. But like other proposals before, and after, the project has yet to move forward, and the vacant building was most recently being considered as the headquarters for a nonprofit.

A Venue Off the Ground, Then Grounded

The Fox Cultural Hall in Kings Beach marks one of the most recent and tangible efforts to establish a permanent performing arts space in the region. Housed in the former Brockway Theater, the venue was reimagined under the leadership of Eve McEneaney, then-executive director of Arts for the Schools (AFTS).

The renovation was a grassroots effort, supported by investments from the building’s owner and community fundraising for equipment and interior improvements. The 325-seat space opened in 2023 with the hope of becoming a cultural anchor for North Lake Tahoe, offering live performances, community events, and arts education.

But even with initial enthusiasm, Fox Hall also ran into struggles of its own.

Earlier this summer, AFTS made the decision to conclude its residency and programming at the Fox Hall. “This choice comes as part of our long-term commitment to deliver arts education and enrichment directly within the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District. By embedding our services on campus, we can align more closely with TTUSD’s strategic goals.” Lindsay McIntosh, the newest executive director at AFTS and a Juilliard School alumna, wrote in an email to Moonshine Ink, “While the Fox has been an incredible base, AFTS’s current board has decided to transition programming responsibilities to a new community collective, allowing us to detach from venue management.”

While she couldn’t say who makes up this new collective, she did say the nonprofit is actively collaborating with several passionate partners who share the vision for a vibrant performing arts hub. “These organizations are exploring ways to assume stewardship of the Fox Cultural Hall, carry forward its mission, and continue providing our community with a welcoming cultural outlet,” she said.

A Path Forward?

In a community with such pressing needs as housing and workforce retention, some may wonder how the arts fit in. For Jen Callaway, town manager for the Town of Truckee, it isn’t an either/or.

“One of the things in the general plan update that came out most often was community character and retaining community character,” Callaway said. “I think as staff, when we hear that, it’s a balance of having arts. You need those services as well to have that character. So, I think we try to allocate resources accordingly. A lot of our resources are going towards housing, and we’ll also spend time towards arts and supporting the arts.”

A dedicated, high-quality performing arts venue in Tahoe/Truckee is possible, advocates say, but only if several major hurdles can be cleared. Land, funding, and long-term sustainability must align. Without those pieces, any new space risks becoming a financial strain rather than a cultural asset.

“Until the town or a city can take on giving either the land for free or helping pay, there’s no way to create a space,” McIntosh said. “To run an actual venue, you need not only a general manager, you need an executive director and you need an artistic director. You need people to clean the space and stay there until 2 in the morning. You need a sound guy.”

The Town of Truckee’s primary focus has been the proposed theatre in the Truckee Railyard, where a development agreement is in effect. Still, if a donor or developer were to come forward with a different viable location, the town would be open to discussion.

“We’re not going to say no,” Callaway said. “We might have to go through a different process for that depending on zoning and land use. But if there’s somebody that’s interested in a project and they’re very set on a location, we’ll have a conversation. The easiest path will be the Railyard.”

The town could also consider concessions, such as reduced rent, to help make a project more financially feasible, but any decision would require a town council vote. Pointing to the Railyard, she noted past support in the form of land contribution and equipment assistance.

“I think we’ve indicated we’re willing to support in some form. The question is how much and what it looks like,” Callaway said.

But finding and identifying an operator remains the biggest challenge. “We’re trying to be in the convening support role to the extent that we can, but local governments typically are not operators of theaters,” Callaway said. “I can’t say it doesn’t happen anywhere, but it’s not really the expertise that we have, but it is a gap that we have in the community. And so, something we’re interested in trying to support if there’s a role for us.”

The proposed event center in Truckee’s The Old Lumberyard project has sparked some interest. Located on the former site of Truckee Tahoe Lumber in eastern downtown Truckee, the development is a vision of the Cross family, who owned and operated TTL for four generations until its sale earlier this year. The new project is designed as a mixed-use commercial and retail space. At 17,000 square feet and three levels, the project’s event center could host a range of events — but in its current iteration, it’s designed more for weddings and corporate functions than performing arts.

Still, the door isn’t closed. “If the town came back to us and said, ‘Hey, we really want to re-look at this event space, would you be willing to pivot and see if performing arts could be better included?’ We will absolutely come to the table,” said Aimee Schaller, President of CF Holding Company. “We’re huge supporters of the arts and we’d love to see something go in. It just has to make sense. It has to be fiscally responsible.”

That’s part of the challenge. What a theater needs is different from what music or dance require. “Even if you had all the money in the world, how do you create the perfect space that meets the needs of all the different organizations that are going to be using it? It’s tough,” Schaller said.

Hanna remembers a study commissioned as part of the 2006 advocacy group that recommended a network of venues. “It’s best for the region to have different size venues that are appropriate for different things throughout the triangle of Kings Beach, Tahoe City, and Truckee,” she said. “Which I firmly believe in. Because for me, for dance, we need a lot of stage space. You don’t need that for a piano trio.”

“In the absence of a true performance center, we find ourselves endlessly patching the holes in a leaky vessel — time, energy, and resources diverted toward makeshift solutions that might otherwise enrich our programming and enliven the quiet seasons with more performances, said Hanna. “The Lake Tahoe Dance Collective already performs a small miracle with every modest means we have. One can only imagine what might unfold if we had, quite simply, a space to enter and move — a room made for dancing.”

There may also be a glimmer of hope on the lake. In Crystal Bay, the historic Cal Neva — once host to the Rat Pack and Marilyn Monroe — is undergoing a major renovation, and, according to Hanna, there’s talk of reviving its original performing arts space.

According to the project’s website, the space is tracking an opening in 2027. “It’s a good space with a good soul, and I’m very hopeful on that,” Hanna said.

But no matter how inspiring the concept, the same obstacle looms: funding.

Despite the region’s significant wealth, philanthropic support often flows elsewhere. And with major civic efforts already underway — like the campaign to build a new Truckee library — community capacity is limited. The library, many say, is a model of what it takes to bring a project of that scale to life.

“I think it’s a great example of what is involved in community effort in getting a project like that built,” Cutler said. And Schaller agrees. “I wish we could get a group of people, like the Friends of the Truckee Library that are, like, we are making this happen.”

Looking for That Spark

Across the country, performing arts venues are still rebounding from the pandemic, navigating changing audience habits and declining attendance. Tahoe/Truckee is not immune to these challenges, and any new venue will need more than walls and a stage — it will need a solid plan for programming and operational sustainability.

“We’re looking to our sister cultural district, the Grass Valley-Nevada City Cultural District, which has historically been embedded with beautiful performing arts venues,” Cutler said. “Yet many venues across the country and performing arts communities are really struggling post pandemic because people have changed their habits. It’s easier to stay home and view on Netflix than it is to go buy a ticket and see a performance.”

Just down the hill, Grass Valley is one step ahead with the 42,000-square-foot Crown Points Venue, a performing arts complex designed to anchor the local creative economy and serve as a regional draw.

The arts can be an economic engine. “The amount of money that people spend when going to a performance — they buy an outfit, they go to dinner, they get a babysitter,” Hanna said. “The arts can actually be a driver of the economy.”

She has seen it firsthand with her dance company and their performances. “I started with a $500 grant from the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation 18 years ago, and I run a performing arts nonprofit that now has national recognition, and we’re educating our students,” Hanna said. “We’re commissioning new works, and our budget’s now over $350,000 annually.”

The talent is here, and the vision hasn’t gone away.

But realizing it will take more than enthusiasm. It will require buy-in from local institutions, alignment among community leaders, and philanthropic investment from those who call this place home — part-time or full. And whether that moment is coming soon, or still years away, the conversation isn’t over. It’s just waiting for the curtain to rise.