Thomas J. West Music

The unique performing arts school I work for is looking for a new home. It's a happy problem to have - we're bursting at the seams with students at our current location in West Chester, PA.

The school is an offering of the Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School, a K-12 cyber school. Students take their coursework from home via web-based lessons. For those within a two-hour drive of West Chester, students may audition to enroll in classes at the CPFA beginning in 5th grade. The students spend two days a week for an entire school day taking classes in music, art, drama, and dance.

The middle school students (grades 5-8) also experience a course called integrated arts, where an area of focus is explored by all four disciplines. This year, our theme is "The Italian Renaissance" and to finish the year, the middle school students will be staging the masquerade ball scene from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Students will be assigned roles as actors, dancers, musicians, or will help the art department make masques for the dancers and actors to wear during the performance.

The high school students do exceptionally brilliant work. The art shows each semester are amazing, the theater department puts on five productions a year (two middle school and three high school, including an original murder mystery script written by center director Mark Allen), and the music graduates are auditioning for prestigeous music schools such as Berklee, North Texas, the Frost School of Music (U. Miami), etc.

If anyone among my readership knows of an available building in the Greater Philadelphia area that can fit the following needs, please let me know. The building can be in a corporate park, a former school building, a former church building, a former anything. We're looking for:

• An auditorium or 1000 sq. ft.  large room with 20 foot + ceilings for theater, music, and dance performances
• Two large rooms, preferably with dance floors, mirrors, and bars already installed
• Two large rooms for instrumental and choral music rehearsal space and storage
• One kitchen/cafeteria/dining area
• Rest rooms, preferably with a locker/changing area
• Classroom-sized rooms for 2D Art, 3D Art, dark room photo, digital artlab, music keyboard lab, general music/guitar, acting, and tech theater
• 5-10 office rooms
• 1-5 practice rooms
• Storage for props, costumes, bric brac, etc.
• LAN ethernet ready

Any assistance or leads would be greatly appreciated. A big welcome to the new readership that has joined my newsletter list over the past two months.

This article (c) 2010 by Thomas J. West. Please contact the author before reprinting on or offline.