Adirondack Regional Theatre celebrates 25 years of community, creativity

What started as a small performance group has grown into thriving theater company

By Lauren Dorsey

In the late 1990s, Tom and Pam Lavin noticed a gap in Plattsburgh’s art scene: an organization dedicated to community theater. So, they set out to create one.

Together with several fellow thespians, they founded a small performance group and began staging shows at local schools and the Lions Club Bandshell. Now—after giving more than 100 performances to an estimated 125,000 audience members—their company, the Adirondack Regional Theatre (ART), is celebrating its silver anniversary.

“I never thought I’d see the 25th anniversary of this group. Quite honestly, we never imagined it would evolve beyond a few shows,” said Tom Lavin.

A growing legacy in local theater

Adirondack Regional Theatre has surpassed the Lavins’ original vision through more than just its longevity. In addition to averaging eight to 10 shows a year, ART hosts a variety of community events, including monthly “Pick Up Plays,” murder mystery dinner parties, and a 10-week youth summer camp. “We’ve been very fortunate,” said Tom Lavin. “The public has responded well to all the things that we’ve added.”

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While Adirondack Regional Theatre saw growth in its early years, its reach has exploded in the last decade. Things kicked into gear once the organization began partnering with the Strand Center for the Arts and performing at its theater in 2015. “The audiences started coming in bigger numbers, we gained more members, [and] our members wanted to act more often,” said Tom Lavin.

This summer, the organization will be putting on its first season of Shakespeare in the Park, which Tom Lavin says he hopes becomes an annual tradition.

“We’re trying to bring as much theater and as much art to people as we can for free, so that people can dip their toes in and see what we do,” said LeAnne Yelton, the vice president of ART’s board.

Building community through theater

According to Tom Lavin, ART has thrived in large part because of the community that has formed around it. “We have people involved from all walks of life, who might not normally associate with each other, but through this shared love of theater, we have become a kind of family,” he said. “We have people that have been with us for 25 years, and we had people that have been with us for a couple months, and they all bring different traits, different talents, and different ways of making this organization what it has become.”

Gabrielle Dion, a member of ART’s board, agrees. “Theater is an art that requires you to be vulnerable, and open, and silly and real,” said Dion, who began performing with ART in 2011, when she was just 15. “I think because it demands all of those different things, it lends itself to creating this tightly knit community that really feels like a chosen family.”

Another major ingredient for ART’s success? The expertise the local community has to offer. “People don’t really realize how much talent there is within the North Country,” said Dion. Last summer, Dion helped run auditions for “The Little Mermaid.” “We’ve been in the theater community for a long time, but people were showing up for these auditions who we had never met before, and just astonishing us with their performances,” she said.

Reflecting on his—and ART’s—journey, Lavin said his passion for theater has always been fueled by its ability to shape those who engage with it. “The thing that makes this special for me personally, is knowing how theater can impact everyone involved, from the message that they see as audience members [to] the relationships that form in a cast and crew.”

Check out the video below about Adirondack Regional Theatre from Mountain Lake PBS: