WEST YELLOWSTONE, MT When I moved to Idaho from Arizona a bunch of young people I worked with took me to Playmill Theatre in West Yellowstone, MT. It was a great experience. I didn’t know theater could be so much fun.
I saw Fiddler on the Roof. John Bidwell was Tevye. Since then, I have seen dozens of performances. My kids loved it.
I rekindled the love for the blue painted old building on 20 Madison Avenue with the big windmill out front a couple of years ago.
I had a chance to see “Anastasia,” one of their last shows a week before they closed on Saturday Aug. 31, after 60 years.
The playhouse at the entrance of Yellowstone National Park open from Memorial Day to Labor Day attracted people from around the world, but mostly from Utah and Idaho.
Roger Merrill, the Playmill owner since 2005 decided it was time to build a new 22,000 square foot theatre complex, with a restaurant and a Mercantile gift shop. It’s down the road a piece at Mack’s Inn at Island Park. The West Yellowstone theatre had a maximum seating capacity of 267 seats. The new theatre will seat 480 people.
The restaurant they say is supposed to be a burger and steak joint with performers taking stage during the meal.
The West Yellowstone theater had a long history of partnerships with students from BYU-I and Ricke College before that.
Lee Benson, a faculty member at Ricks College at the time, found the abandoned post office and drug store and converted it into a theatre. He started stage production in 1964. The 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake took its toll on the Yellowstone area and the owners vacated the building.
Since that time hundreds of student actors from across the country have honed their skills and thousands of audiences have laughed and cried at the plays there.
Merrill, a native of Rigby, was a summer actor at the theatre while he was going to college. He is now a member of the BYU-I faculty during the school year and a theatre owner operator with his wife Heidi when the college is out for the summer.
He and his wife, Heidi, own and operate the theatre during the summer months where they directs, acts, produces and make concessions to sell during intermission. The couple’s children and grandchildren are also a big part of the summer productions along with talented individuals recruited from across the country.
In May construction began on the new 22,000-square-foot facility located at 4111 North Big Springs Loop in Island Park adjacent to Springhill Suites by Marriott. Merrill is betting on the complex will be completed by May 2025 for the next season.
One of the main factors for building a new facility is the West Yellowstone facility was built in the late 1920s or early 30s. It took a lot of work to get all the lights and projections systems and sound up year after year.
Playmill generally sells out every night and at every performance. The best way to grow and give more people an opportunity to experience what they have to offer was to make the theater bigger.
Merrill is hoping the new location being 20 minutes closer and more convenient for Playmill patrons.