Arc Stages has taken a big step towards becoming a larger company. The nonprofit theater company, located at 147 Wheeler Avenue in Pleasantville, has begun building a new theater in a former warehouse located behind the organization’s current facility. The current theater at Arc Stages has been used since the company moved to Pleasantville in 2013.

The current theater will be converted into other types of space, including “dressing rooms, and most importantly, a large classroom space,” said Adam Cohen, the Executive Artistic Director of Arc Stages. “We have a lot of educational programs, summer programs, programs for all ages; adults, high schoolers, junior high, all the way down.”

The new theater will have 150 seats, roughly double the number of the current theater. And it will be a proscenium theater, meaning that the seats will no longer all be at the same level. “Basically, stadium seating,” Cohen said. “Structurally, it will look like a movie theater in terms of the house. You’ll walk in and there’ll be aisles on both sides that go up and there’ll be 13 rows back. So, a good view from every seat. 

“There’ll be a proscenium wall with a stage that we’ll thrust in front of that a little bit, and it will have a pit so you can have an orchestra sunk down below the stage, and it’ll just be very good sightlines from all sides. And the sound should be very good in the space as well.”

Arc Stages has three theater companies: an educational program, a community stage, and the professional Next Stage program. Cohen said the new theater will especially benefit the Next Stage company. 

“There are a lot of shows that we would want do that are just not conducive in the [current] space,” he said. “But in the new space, we’ll be able to expand the types of shows we’re doing.”

Cohen has been with Arc Stages for more than 20 years. He said plans for a larger theater have long been in the works. “When we first moved into this space, and we started renovating the entire space…  we realized that we didn’t have enough money up front to do the entire space, including the theater that we’re building now, so we planned to sort of make a temporary theater in the back part of the current space.”

Arc Stages recently received a $500,000 state grant with the help of State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, whose district includes the theater. Fundraising is underway for the remaining $300,000 to $400,000 to complete the project, Cohen said.