Hale Center: Beautiful new theater will be 3 times bigger

The Hale and Swenson families opened the 305-seat Hale Center Theater in Orem in 1990, the fourth in a chain of Hale Center Theaters. Owners include Anne Swenson and Cody Hale. The 11,000 square foot building was originally built as a Veterans hall and has been used as a school, dance studio, alternative school, church, and reception center.

Ground was broken on 16 November 2007 for a new $7.5 million facility in the southwest corner of the Midtown Village development at 320 South State Street. The building will have 39,686 square feet and 522 seats, with ample parking and almost twice the seating, restroom, and rehearsal space. The new theater will feature a new winch-driven fly system, a stage with slip stages and movable sections, a tension grid ceiling and a slightly larger stage.

It will still be theater in the round.

"In traditional proscenium theater, there are great physical distances between the artistic elements and the patrons," said owner Cody Swenson. "At Hale Center Theater Orem, that has never been the case. The audience has been and always will be so close to the stage and the performers that some can literally reach out and touch them."