The History of HCT

Holland Civic Theatre first opened in 1959 doing their small performances in the woman's Lit. club. From there they moved into several buildings rehearsing in the rented spaces and moving in to the Holland High auditorium over the weekend and then producing their 4-5 runs of a show. This was hard work because they had to wait until the Highschool was done with its space before they could move in. This made things shaky and unreliable. Because it was a Civic Theatre they didn't have much money and it relied heavily on the donations of kind hearted donors and the income of ticket sales that came from their few shows. They didn't have much choice. So year after year they kept up in their rented spaces, making props and rehearsing.
Then they found their building, an old Episcopal church and with vigor and excitement they plowed into the work ahead to make the old building in to a working play house. For seven years they used their new building for only rehearsals, building props to bring to the highschool and hosting bingo games as a fund raiser. But they finally dropped bingo realizing that it was not worth the effort that they were putting into it. They devoted all their valuable time to the making a better theatre. They made the old sanctuary into an auditorium with raised chair platforms to better help the audience see the stage. They did a thing called ‘Buy a seat for the Theatre’ to help provide the auditorium with seating. They encouraged the public to come and audition. Within months they were adding more performances to their list of things to do.  Many came with knowledge of the theatre and even more without, but with patience and help every one did what needed to be done. Within a year, they were doing more and more shows, going from a mere 3 to a staggering 7 a season. Through out the years the theatre has been helping others to open up and forget about being shy and sometimes to even find yourself in something you love doing.