C'ville Performing Arts Venue
Donation protected
The Belmont Arts Collaborative (BAC) exists to provide artists and arts organizations the opportunity to create, learn, and perform in a dedicated performing arts space. Located in historic Belmont, the BAC fills a long-standing need for accesible performance and rehearsal space for artists, arts organizations, and arts education programs for youth and adults in Charlottesville.
The Belmont Arts Collaborative offers:
Black Box Theater -- An accessible, and appropriately sized theater space for small performance groups. The theater seats 85-100 guests, with a dressing room, box office, and waiting area; it can be configured for full-scale productions, cabaret-style performances, workshops, classes, or community forums.
Rehearsal Studios – Three studios adjacent to the theater, available for dance, vocal, acting, and other training programs for youth and adults.
A permanent home for DMR Adventures – Rehearsal and performance space for DMR Adventures, which provides pre-professional performing arts training to youth ages 5-18, and the Youth Leadership Program for training young designers, technicians, and creative team members.
The Belmont Arts Collaborative offers local performing arts groups a rare resource: an intimate venue with affordable production costs, allowing longer show runs (without competing for stage time in larger, busier, expensive venues), more opportunities to perform, and the flexibility to create and foster new work. In the past six months, the space has been used for rehearsals, performances, and events by DMR Adventures, Phoenix Theater Company, Big Blue Door, the Center for Vocal Study, the Charlottesville Playwrights Collective, Charlottesville Families in Action, the Belmont-Carlton Neighborhood Association, and the Valley Fencing Alliance.
Your donations to the Belmont Arts Collaborative will allow us to:
· Complete the construction of the black box theater.
· Purchase additional lighting, curtains, sound equipment, and seating for the theater.
· Refurbish and maintain rehearsal spaces.
· Host workshops and training opportunities with visiting performing arts professionals.
We have a big goal, and welcome donations in any amount. To date, we have spent over $55,000 on the buildout of the new theater, and there is still a lot to do. Some of our upcoming real costs include:
$50 - tri-pod stand for lights
$100 - new chair for the theater (100 needed)
$125 - dimmer pack for our lighting system
$500 - one spotlight
$700 - LED theater light
$1500 - mixer for our sound system
$2000 - attached ladder to access our costume storage
$6000- sprung floor
$6000 - one month's rent for theater and studio spaces
$13,500 - curtains and labor to install
$18,000 - ceiling grid to hang lighting system
Corporate sponsorships are available; we would welcome the opportunity to discuss partnership.
Donations may be tax deductible, pending approval of our 501c3 application for recognition of Tax Exemption/Non-Profit Status.
What others are saying about BAC:
"Belmont Arts Collaborative is important to our community because it offers a space of artistic expression for the creative groups in Charlottesville that aren't fiscally capable of having their own brick and mortar building. Recently, I had the opportunity to work as a stage manager for Phoenix Theatre Works on their debut production. BAC made it possible for Phoenix Theatre Works to begin, and that is the type of opportunity available to all artists in Charlottesville, and I look forward to the next opportunity I have to create there."
— Gabby Lossia
"Theater is the safest and most comforting setting possible, and yet, you are constantly pushed and challenged to be a better you."
— Greyson Taylor, Member of DMR Youth Leadership Program, Leader of DMajoR and Gleeked Out
“The Belmont Arts Collaborative is a fabulous idea that came along at just the right time! My group, the Charlottesville Playwrights Collective, recently formed to produce full-length plays written by local authors. We successfully brought together most of the elements necessary to do just that, but we struggled to find a space. Then along came Melissa Charles. She has done remarkable work converting a warehouse into a fully functioning theater, and also helped bring creative life to a part of town that is just now getting attention from the broader community. Without the Belmont Arts Collaborative, I don’t know where we’d be, and we all look forward to an ongoing and fruitful partnership.”
— Sean McCord, Charlottesville Playwrights Collective
"Belmont Arts Collaborative is the most exciting news in the Charlottesville arts scene we've heard in years. This is a theater that is truly open to the community, a place for creative work generated in the area that's vital, original, and free. It's an opportunity and a resource for everyone!"
-Joel Jones, co-director of Big Blue Door
"Melissa Charles is prolific in her artistry and community building. The new Belmont Arts Collaborative is yet another wonderful seed she has planted that is already touching the lives of young artists. The Center for Vocal Study regularly teaches voice lessons out of the space, providing an important accessible space for our students. In the short time the BAC has existed we have co-hosted a student concert, we ran our 4th annual A Cappella Camp from the black box and we offered a teacher training with our guest facilitators. As a voice and choir teacher I am always looking for ways to get my students plugged into opportunities that can grow their world in positive and professional environments. I regularly refer my students to programs with Melissa and the Belmont Arts Collaborative now provides much needed access to space for continuing collaborations."
-Heather Hightower, Center for Vocal Studies
The Belmont Arts Collaborative offers:
Black Box Theater -- An accessible, and appropriately sized theater space for small performance groups. The theater seats 85-100 guests, with a dressing room, box office, and waiting area; it can be configured for full-scale productions, cabaret-style performances, workshops, classes, or community forums.
Rehearsal Studios – Three studios adjacent to the theater, available for dance, vocal, acting, and other training programs for youth and adults.
A permanent home for DMR Adventures – Rehearsal and performance space for DMR Adventures, which provides pre-professional performing arts training to youth ages 5-18, and the Youth Leadership Program for training young designers, technicians, and creative team members.
The Belmont Arts Collaborative offers local performing arts groups a rare resource: an intimate venue with affordable production costs, allowing longer show runs (without competing for stage time in larger, busier, expensive venues), more opportunities to perform, and the flexibility to create and foster new work. In the past six months, the space has been used for rehearsals, performances, and events by DMR Adventures, Phoenix Theater Company, Big Blue Door, the Center for Vocal Study, the Charlottesville Playwrights Collective, Charlottesville Families in Action, the Belmont-Carlton Neighborhood Association, and the Valley Fencing Alliance.
Your donations to the Belmont Arts Collaborative will allow us to:
· Complete the construction of the black box theater.
· Purchase additional lighting, curtains, sound equipment, and seating for the theater.
· Refurbish and maintain rehearsal spaces.
· Host workshops and training opportunities with visiting performing arts professionals.
We have a big goal, and welcome donations in any amount. To date, we have spent over $55,000 on the buildout of the new theater, and there is still a lot to do. Some of our upcoming real costs include:
$50 - tri-pod stand for lights
$100 - new chair for the theater (100 needed)
$125 - dimmer pack for our lighting system
$500 - one spotlight
$700 - LED theater light
$1500 - mixer for our sound system
$2000 - attached ladder to access our costume storage
$6000- sprung floor
$6000 - one month's rent for theater and studio spaces
$13,500 - curtains and labor to install
$18,000 - ceiling grid to hang lighting system
Corporate sponsorships are available; we would welcome the opportunity to discuss partnership.
Donations may be tax deductible, pending approval of our 501c3 application for recognition of Tax Exemption/Non-Profit Status.
What others are saying about BAC:
"Belmont Arts Collaborative is important to our community because it offers a space of artistic expression for the creative groups in Charlottesville that aren't fiscally capable of having their own brick and mortar building. Recently, I had the opportunity to work as a stage manager for Phoenix Theatre Works on their debut production. BAC made it possible for Phoenix Theatre Works to begin, and that is the type of opportunity available to all artists in Charlottesville, and I look forward to the next opportunity I have to create there."
— Gabby Lossia
"Theater is the safest and most comforting setting possible, and yet, you are constantly pushed and challenged to be a better you."
— Greyson Taylor, Member of DMR Youth Leadership Program, Leader of DMajoR and Gleeked Out
“The Belmont Arts Collaborative is a fabulous idea that came along at just the right time! My group, the Charlottesville Playwrights Collective, recently formed to produce full-length plays written by local authors. We successfully brought together most of the elements necessary to do just that, but we struggled to find a space. Then along came Melissa Charles. She has done remarkable work converting a warehouse into a fully functioning theater, and also helped bring creative life to a part of town that is just now getting attention from the broader community. Without the Belmont Arts Collaborative, I don’t know where we’d be, and we all look forward to an ongoing and fruitful partnership.”
— Sean McCord, Charlottesville Playwrights Collective
"Belmont Arts Collaborative is the most exciting news in the Charlottesville arts scene we've heard in years. This is a theater that is truly open to the community, a place for creative work generated in the area that's vital, original, and free. It's an opportunity and a resource for everyone!"
-Joel Jones, co-director of Big Blue Door
"Melissa Charles is prolific in her artistry and community building. The new Belmont Arts Collaborative is yet another wonderful seed she has planted that is already touching the lives of young artists. The Center for Vocal Study regularly teaches voice lessons out of the space, providing an important accessible space for our students. In the short time the BAC has existed we have co-hosted a student concert, we ran our 4th annual A Cappella Camp from the black box and we offered a teacher training with our guest facilitators. As a voice and choir teacher I am always looking for ways to get my students plugged into opportunities that can grow their world in positive and professional environments. I regularly refer my students to programs with Melissa and the Belmont Arts Collaborative now provides much needed access to space for continuing collaborations."
-Heather Hightower, Center for Vocal Studies
Organizer and beneficiary
Laura Estes Ege
Organizer
Charlottesville, VA
Melissa Charles
Beneficiary
