The Highwood Theatre is leaving its current location at 914 Silver Spring Ave. for a temporary space where its classes and rehearsals will be held beginning tomorrow (May 1), according to an announcement on the organization’s web site.
The new location at 1400 Spring St., Suite 350 (on the corner of Spring and First Avenue) also will house the theater’s offices, said Artistic Director Matthew Nicola.
“We’ve had tremendous growth, and we’ve been experiencing tremendous growth for quite some time now,” Nicola said. “The rate we’re growing and the numbers of students . . . the demand has been overwhelming, to say the least. Space wise, the current space just wasn’t meeting those needs.”
In the meantime, another location is being renovated to open this summer as Highwood’s Open Source Studio, “a concept that has been developed and refined at Highwood over the past six years. That space will be a community arts space—an incubator for Highwood programs and a home for many of our community-based productions,” according to the announcement.
The organization moved to Silver Spring in 2013 and originally was located on the ground floor on Silver Spring Avenue. The theater took over a larger second floor space in the summer of 2017, using the first floor as a black box theater.
CREATE Arts then moved into the ground floor space in March 2018 and continues to operate its programs and classes there.
In addition to this week’s move, Highwood Theatre has further plans for growth.
“We’ll [also] be opening a second, larger location later this year, and more information about that will be released here once those logistics are officially signed and delivered,” Nicola added. “It’s an exciting new phase for us.”
Graphic courtesy The Highwood Theatre