Performance groups look to churches, synagogues as venues

Its cream walls soar a staggering five stories from the red-carpeted floor, past a wraparound balcony and banks of clerestory windows, to a ceiling of planked oak.

As many as 3,200 people can be seated in the Tindley Temple United Methodist Church on the Avenue of the Arts in Center City. Yet on most nights, this grand space is dark and empty, as many houses of worship are.

On those same nights, across the Philadelphia region, dozens of struggling theater troupes, dance companies, and musical ensembles are praying for permanent places to perform.

It is high time, says a local preservationist group, to bring together those who have space and those who have not.

"The richest cache of standing and functional architecture in our region is sacred space," said Robert Jaeger, executive director of Partners for Sacred Places, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit group that for 21 years has worked to save endangered churches and other religious buildings.

Since last summer, Partners has been surveying churches and synagogues in Center City to create an inventory of potential performance, rehearsal, and office space for cultural arts groups. Jaeger said he was "stunned" by the early findings.

With just 14 of 42 sites inspected for the "Arts and Congregations Project," he said, rich possibilities are emerging for "mutually beneficial" space-sharing collaborations.

"We've already gotten a sense of the opportunities," said Thaddeus Squire, head of the survey team and president of CultureWorks Greater Philadelphia, which advises arts and heritage groups.

Squire was creator of last year's "Hidden Philadelphia" festival, which placed exhibits and performances in public buildings, including several churches. By showing "the value of places that are underused," he said, it gave rise to the Arts and Congregations project.

Partners must make suitable matches of congregations and arts groups, which will be expected to pay some rent, Jaeger said.

There are at least 138 professional dance troupes in the region, 130 theater companies, and untold numbers of musical ensembles, according to local arts councils. Most operate on budgets well under $1 million, and some on a fraction of that.

Such a venture would be a "first in the nation," according to Jaeger.

Partners' 1998 landmark survey of the many social services that urban congregations provide to their neighborhoods prompted creation of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Services.