At a gala marking the final weekend of its 45th mainstage season, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre Thursday night announced a $20 million campaign that will expand its PBT School and its presence in the region and the dance community at large.
This summer, PBT plans to break ground on a 14,000-square-foot annex at its Strip District campus. In 2010, the company acquired the former St. John’s Rectory in Lawrenceville to create the Byham House residential facility for the PBT School’s out-of-town, high school-age students. The annex will be named in honor of the Byham family and will house two dance studios, expanded cross-training facilities, changing rooms and study areas for students.
This expansion is expected to generate a 40 percent increase in enrollment in the next three-plus years and make it a more sustainable revenue source for the entire organization. An “aggressive timeline” has been mapped out for the construction, with hopes of having the facility ready to open in June 2016, says executive director Harris Ferris.
The expansion is just one component of the campaign’s core goals and strategies. The other parts are to increase its endowment by 50 percent to support the company’s long-term artistic vision and establish an innovation fund, which will make it more financially feasible for PBT to commission new choreography and stage masterworks without increasing ticket prices or cutting programming. The fund also will help the company maintain its commitment to incorporating live music into each season’s lineup and to be able to provide scholarships to aspiring artists.
At a time when some dance companies are struggling to keep their doors open (and others, like the Cleveland Ballet, have had to close theirs), PBT sees its ambitious campaign as another way to bolster its reputation in the performing arts scene domestically and abroad.
“The company has been taking small steps toward the improvements for a number of years,” Mr. Ferris says.
Benchmarks have included raising the rigor of the repertoire, paying down debts and operating in the black for the past eight years. These and other advancements highlight PBT’s promise for the future and help make the company more attractive to potential investors, Mr. Ferris says. As of earlier this week, $13.5 million of the campaign’s target amount has been raised, with leadership provided by campaign chairs Carolyn and William Byham and Dawn and Chris Fleischner.
The PBT School, especially its pre-professional training division, is a key feeder for the company.
“That’s one of the first places [artistic director] Terrence Orr looks because the training is good and they’re going to be qualified,” Mr. Ferris says. “Right now we have several dancers who trained with us from childhood through the school and quite a few others who came and finished their training here.”
Another one of the goals for the expansion is to make dance more accessible by continuing to grow programming in the school’s adult and open divisions. These classes range from Pilates instruction to dance for those with Parkinson’s disease and children with motor learning challenges.
The timing of these enhancements goes hand-in-hand with the growth Pittsburgh is seeing on other fronts, Mr. Ferris says, including its blossoming cultural scene and a growing number of city residents seeking dance entertainment or more fitness options.
“We can help serve that influx. We see dance as a really wonderful gift to the community.”
Sara Bauknecht: sbauknecht@post-gazette.com or on Twitter and Instagram @SaraB_PG.
First Published: April 17, 2015, 1:00 a.m.
