SRO Theater seeks permanent home for 2026 and beyond

Standing Room Only (SRO) Theater has been a community staple for years, but despite the growing popularity amongst the locally produced drama group, the organization has been looking for a permanent home since before COVID-19 swept the globe in 2020.

According to Steve Harshfield, SRO Theater president, the local community-based theater group has been without a permanent home since 2019 when the Triad Theater closed its doors.

“Theaters around the world were closing at an astronomical rate. When the Triad closed, before COVID-19 was even a thing, it kind of makes me wonder if they saw something on the horizon that nobody else did,” Harshfield joked. “Once we did finally come out of COVID-19, I want to say it was late 2021 or early 2022, we started to inch our way into doing shows again.”

He added that SRO Theater, for the first time post-COVID, held showings of “39 Steps” at the Outpost Church in Yelm. That specific production marked the first time that the theater group held a show at the new location.

“We’ve been kind of using the Outpost Church as our outpost for theater until we could figure out what was next,” Harshfield said. “In the meantime, we fell into a really great relationship with Farrelli’s. They’ve been a great host and we’ve branched out into the murder mystery dinners. We did the Christmas program there just a couple weeks ago too. It’s been a really good partnership.”

Harshfield added that SRO Theater “has always been on the lookout” for their next theater home — ideally a permanent location. Despite the efforts, Harshfield believes there aren’t a lot of locations in Yelm that can host a theater.

“We’ve been spreading the net far and wide, and in my relationship with another non-profit in town called A Prairie Night’s Dream, that non-profit is specifically tailored to find, secure and manage an arts, culture and events center in the Yelm area,” Harshfield said. “We’ve been doing all our due diligence in the background trying to find properties, partnerships and build relationships that we know we need to make it to the next step.”

While SRO Theater and A Prairie Night’s Dream continue their efforts to bring an arts, culture and event center to Yelm — Harshfield noted the potential location would be for something “far wider and greater” than just theater.

“It would have concerts, films, all kinds of different other activities that you could do in a venue that has a stage and some seating,” he said. “That’s one of the things we’ve been on the lookout for. We’ve been working with some of our up-and-coming partners in the community like YARD and the Outpost Church.”

According to the SRO Theater president, both organizations — YARD and the Outpost Church — have shown interest in joining theater’s efforts in constructing a community-based space where everyone from “a newborn child to 90-year-olds” can find activities they enjoy.

“I think we’ve got the foundation for a couple really good possible deals. One of the things we’ve really been banking on and hoping for is a property that would not only fit our current needs for a performing arts center and other cultural events, artistic events, but some place that we can also spread out and start expanding into other things,” Harshfield said. “It’s slim pickings in Yelm to be honest.”

Until SRO Theater can find a permanent venue to call home, Harshfield said the organization is “spinning its wheels” on all sources of funding until they can “find a millionaire who wants to put money towards something like this” or until the organization obtains “a bunch” of smaller donations.

For more information on SRO Theater, visit its website at www.srotheater.org.