The Washington Center for the Performing Arts
The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, South Puget Sound's largest performing arts facility, is committed to providing a wide variety of entertainment, cultural, and educational activities for the residents of five counties. Located in the heart of Washington State's capital city, we have become a community gathering place, providing a focus for the performing arts unique to the region. We present our own season of national and international touring artists from a broad spectrum of genres and styles. We also provide the support services needed by the many local artistic partners, who call the Washington Center home. Our multi-purpose facility contains a 1,000-seat proscenium theater with four seating levels and adjacent lobby spaces, as well as a smaller Stage II Black Box theater with its own lobby. The stages and lobby areas are available for rent - not only for regional performing arts groups and touring artists, but also for workshops, seminars, receptions, parties, video shoots… just about anything you could think of. Opened in 1985, our facility has played host to thousands of events, with over 2,800,000 people having crossed our threshold. The Center is really the grandchild of the old Liberty Theater, a 1924 vaudeville house which stood on the same ground the Washington Center does today. The Liberty Theater was renovated and refurbished in 1948, becoming the Olympic Theater movie house. The Olympic was then taken down to just a few exterior walls in the early 1980s and completely rebuilt as the Washington Center. While the building's facade still retains elements of the 1924 architecture, the interior is contemporary and modern. The Center's building is owned by the City of Olympia, and the Washington Center for the Performing Arts is a private, not-for-profit organization with a long-term contract to operate the Center. We are a real success story in public/private partnerships, with each party bringing its strengths to the table.
