It’s time to bring down the curtain.  For now. 

Off Center for the Dramatic Arts is celebrating ten years of being a home and haven for independent performance creators in Burlington and Vermont. This has been a decade of world premiere plays, classical revivals, splashy little musicals, killer comedy, intense solo work and challenging performance art on the cutting edge. We are proud to carve out a special little gathering place for Vermonters to take creative risks and develop our homegrown theatre art and artists.  

We were hoping to get together have a big celebration - a decade in operation is a major milestone in the arts.  Unfortunately, world events are interfering with both our ability to celebrate and our ability to gather.  The COVID-19 pandemic makes physically being together indoors to sing and shout and dance dangerous, for both our audiences and our artists.  The Off Center stage has been dark since late March, and we cannot predict when we will be able to return.

For this reason, after extensive community consultation, the Off Center Board of Directors has voted to take an intermission.  We will be leaving our current space at the end of July. Our equipment will be stored and our regular programming will pause. We will wait patiently offstage for the cue to start our next act.  

During this intermission, we will revive our search for a suitable local space to build the next Off Center.  We have a good track record of transforming empty rooms into professional performance spaces, and are optimistic in our collective ability to emerge from this crisis stronger with a new home and vision to support performance in Vermont. When live indoor performance is once again possible, we will make sure that our entire community can access affordable equipped performance and creation space.  

We want Vermont performing artists to take artistic risks, not health ones. We want our audiences to feel safe sharing the electricity of being in the room where the show happens, experiencing live stories and art together.     

If you are interested to volunteer in the next few weeks to help with the move to storage, if you have secure storage space you would like to offer, or if you have an idea for a raw space we should consider for the next Off Center stage, contact us at [email protected].  We are an all-volunteer 501(c)3 non-profit, and we run on the passion and generosity of your help.    

Thank you to everyone for supporting Off Center these past ten years.  It is our community, our audiences and our artists that make the hard work of maintaining an accessible theatre venue a joy.  We can’t wait to see what will happen next. 

In health and hope, 

Laura Roald
Board President
Off Center for the Dramatic Arts

Keep Engaged With Off Center News and Activities

​Join our Facebook Group

Off Center hosts an active community Facebook group focused on news, discussion and information of interest to Off Centrists - theatre and performing arts chat focused on the Burlington and Vermont scene. 

Follow us on Instagram

We will continue to post information on theatre and performing arts events (in person and virtual) through our Insta.  Check us out, let us know if we can boost your work through our channels.

@OffCenterVt

Subscribe to our Newsletter

While our stage is dark, we will send out periodic updates on our status and promote the work of our community.  

Thank you for your help.

We are determined to provide affordable performance and creation space for artists and community,
​and we need your help!  Off Center is a 100% volunteer run organization, and while we have been forced to close our premises during this health crisis we are focused on finding a new home and rebuilding this crucial community resource.  Donations help us maintain our website and rebuild financial resources necessary to secure our next venue.  When the pandemic dust clears, we will be ready to host the next wave of Vermont theatre and performing artists.