New Davis theater offering spiffier amenities designed for performers and patrons

The curtain has been raised, the actors singing and dancing their way through "Hairspray" and the audience enjoying their new — much comfier — seating. So, let's take a walk through the new Davis Cultural Arts Center.

CenterPoint Legacy Theater, formerly Rodgers Memorial Theater, will be the resident company of the 63,000-square-foot facility. And the building's many amenities may make it a little bit easier for folks to get up off the sofa and out for a night of theater.

Longtime board member Scott VanDyke designed the space, paid for by multiple sources including recreation, arts and parks tax funds from Centerville and Bountiful; his insight to the theater's needs proved invaluable.

The facility offers three performing areas. A main auditorium seats 525 (325 on the floor level and 200 in the balcony). Gone are the sideways seats that caused kinked necks and tight backs. Every seat in the new venue has great sight lines to the stage and plenty of leg room, even for tall folks. The stage in the main auditorium is a "thrust stage" — meaning the stage bows out slightly toward the audience, creating greater intimacy.

And a gorgeous red Austrian grand curtain drapes to the floor — an item lost in many theaters in today's age of budget cuts.

The stage itself is 2,761 square feet, under which is a three-platform, motorized lift system, which the theater will use for everything from an orchestra pit to dramatic costume changes (think the Beast in "Beauty and the Beast"). The three sections move independently, allowing for more freedom in set changes and staging.

Another feather in the theater's cap is the fly system. Above the stage, going 60 feet up, are 21 fly lines, used for large set pieces, backdrops, even people (ala "Peter Pan"). Rodgers' small, cramped theater had nothing in the way of fly space, which was very limiting creatively and technically.

And that's just the main stage.

The arts center also has two other performing spaces: a black box theater, which can seat up to 200 depending on how the space is configured, and will soon have an outdoor amphitheater (which will likely take another summer before it's up and running).

All performing spaces are available to the community to rent, but CenterPoint's season will require the main stage space most of the time.