The Anne Portnuff Theatre is located within the Yorkton Regional High School, but it’s a theatre meant to serve the entire community. The result was a community coming together to renovate it, to fix the seats that had not been replaced for 50 years, raising enough money to not only replace the seats, but do additional work in the theatre.
The Yorkton Regional High School officially opened the theatre with a short ribbon cutting ceremony on Dec. 17.
One of the first things you notice on stage is the dramatically improved lighting, which has been upgraded to LEDs, for a combination of efficiency and improved looks. That upgrade, not part of the original plan, came thanks to an anonymous donation of $100,000. That money went to lighting and sound.
Principal Mike Haczkewicz said it was impressive to see how they went from nothing to over $500,000 and a renovated theatre in just two years.
“We’re right back to a state of the art facility, probably the best theatre in any high school in the province.”
It was a community effort, Haczkewicz, lead by Tonia Vermette with the Yorkton Arts Council, who got the different community groups who use the theatre together to work on getting the project off the ground.
“We talked about what we needed, what we wanted, what our dreams and aspirations were. She kept everybody on task and in line to get what we wanted.”
One thing that hasn’t changed with the new seats is the colour, as is tradition at YRHS they were covered in orange fabric. Back when the project was announced Haczkewicz didn’t know if they could get the school’s distinct shade.
“It was tough, but it was good.”
