CACHE COUNTY – At their regular meeting on Jan. 14, members of the Cache County Council voted unanimously to provide $80,000 to two local theater groups to support their summer productions at the Ellen Eccles Theatre.
The beneficiaries of the county’s largess will be the Cache Theatre Company and Music Theatre West, whose organizers are now planning to mount summer productions at the Eccles Theatre to fill the void left by the Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre’s cancellation of their usual shows at that venue.
David Erickson was the first council member to move that the county award unusual emergency grants of $40,000 each to CTC and MTW organizers to support their summer productions at the Eccles Theatre.
Acknowledging the need for the county to address local concerns about a growing threat to Cache Valley’s thriving Summer Citizens program, other council members followed suit with minimal debate.
Speaking in lieu of CacheARTS executive director Wendi Hassan, Julie Hollist Terrill of the Cache Visitors Bureau made an impassioned plea for emergency funds to council members.
“As you know,” she explained, “after 30 years, the Utah Festival Opera is taking a hiatus this summer from their performances (at the Eccles Theatre).
“For local tourism, that represents a disastrous ‘perfect storm of events’,” Terrill added.
Cache Valley’s hotel and restaurant owners were already concerned about the loss of revenue from the internationally recognized Small Satellite Conference held here each August by Utah State University, which has now moved to the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City.
With the Caine Lyric Theatre on Center Street undergoing major renovations, the Lyric Repertory Company has also announced that its productions this summer will also take place on the Utah State campus rather than downtown.
Due to budgetary constraints, UFOMT impresario Michael Ballam announced in October of 2024 that his theater group was obliged to significantly scale back its 2025 summer season in order to stabilize its finances over the long term. That meant, he explained to the radio audience of KVNU, cancelling productions normally slated for the Eccles Theatre in the summer of 2025.
“Given those changed circumstances,” Terrill said, “I’m very nervous for our hotels and restaurants this summer.”
The lack of that UFOMT summer season also represents a major threat to the valley’s thriving Summer Citizens program and its multi-million dollar economic impact.
Since the mid-1970s, around 800 retired senior citizens from Arizona, California and Texas have flocked to Cache Valley each summer for cooler temperatures, enrichment classes offered on the USU campus and the opportunity to attend Logan’s performing arts programs and community events.
Those summer citizens, as well as other tourists attracted to Cache Valley’s recreational events and outdoor activities, have traditionally contributed millions of dollars to the area’s economy.
Between its rehearsals and main stage productions, the UFOMT normally occupies the stage at the Ellen Eccles Theatre for about three months each summer. Hassan is scheduled to discuss new attractions that she has managed to schedule for the theater on KNVU on Jan. 23, which Terrill said will occupy that venue for at least six of the eleven weeks this summer.
With the financial assistance of revenue from the county Restaurant Tax, those events will now include a production of the musical The Scarlet Pimpernel by Music Theatre West slated for June 20 to 28 and The Prince of Egypt by Cache Theatre Company in the July time frame.
That funding will help to make it possible for those theater groups to maintain their high standards of performance while satisfying local audience expectations and those of summer citizens, according to Sebrina Woodland, the CTC vice president.
“We are thrilled to help our incredible artistic community keep a consistent summer draw to members of our own community as well as those outside it,” Woodland emphasized.
After their unanimous vote approving the grants from Restaurant Tax revenues, Terrill thanked the council members on behalf of the local theater community.