Cary-Grove High School drama students take stage in fine arts center for first time

CARY – During Thursday's performance of "Little Women" on the brand new Cary-Grove Fine Arts Center stage, it was refreshing for senior Kelsey Krigas to be able to walk behind the stage between acts.

"We don't have to crawl behind the stage to get to the other side anymore," laughed Krigas, who played the part of Jo March. "There's an actual hallway we can walk through now."

In addition to the hallway, the newly finished $9 million center includes new features including a multipurpose room, a scene shop where props can be built and prepared, men's and women's dressing rooms, an orchestra pit, air conditioning and heating, a box office and a fly-loft.

Concrete panels frame the auditorium and in the blue-and-white, carpeted lobby, a silver display honoring the project's donors, especially the Foglia Family Foundation, is mounted on the wall.

Thursday's production was the first that was performed in the roughly 27,000-square-foot facility on the stage that stands about 47 feet high.

Both Krigas and junior Hannah Angle described the starkly different experience performing in the new space in comparison to the previous auditorium.

"It actually reduces stress," Angle said, sitting on a couch used in the "Little Women" play. "You just have more space to be off stage and you're able to move around more and you're not on top of each other on stage."

Working in the larger and more high-tech facility has taken some getting used to, said Cary-Grove drama director Laura Whalen. Every day new features of the center are discovered, she said, from knowing how to turn on all the different lights to the fact that the noise from football games no longer leaks into the auditorium.

It's a space she said will greatly enhance the experience for students who get involved with theater, and one that hopefully will attract more students to the club.

"When we got to walk in for the first time, it was extremely overwhelming, because it feels like a different place to me. I walk into this space and I feel like I'm no longer in Cary and in Cary-Grove High School," Whalen said. "It feels like somewhere that professionals would be performing, and I think that's really great for the kids because it helps them elevate to match the space."

Cary-Grove Principal Jay Sargeant said the new facility will be beneficial to the school at large, too. Students involved in choir, band, cheerleading and band have been using the center, and it also includes a space in the lobby for an art gallery.

The demolition of the former space began in fall 2014.

The Cary-Grove Fine Arts Foundation and the Foglia Family Foundation contributed about $1.5 million while the remainder of the cost has come out of Crystal Lake-based Community High School District 155's annual budget, approved last May.