THE WORKROOM @ 33 HAWLEY
Conceived of as a space for the exploration and creation of new work as well as a performance and exhibition venue,
A.P.E.'s 3,800 square-foot WORKROOM accommodates a wide array of projects, supporting the current and next-generation of artists. Housed within the Northampton Community Arts Trust's local arts complex, 33 HAWLEY, The Workroom offers the community a space of unique size and flexibility in which to experience and encounter creative work. The Workroom is home to the WORKROOM COOPERATIVE, an innovative timeshare structure which offers local, national, and international artists year-long access to the space for the development of new work and research.
A.P.E.'s 3,800 square-foot WORKROOM accommodates a wide array of projects, supporting the current and next-generation of artists. Housed within the Northampton Community Arts Trust's local arts complex, 33 HAWLEY, The Workroom offers the community a space of unique size and flexibility in which to experience and encounter creative work. The Workroom is home to the WORKROOM COOPERATIVE, an innovative timeshare structure which offers local, national, and international artists year-long access to the space for the development of new work and research.
SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE WORKROOM
It’s the perfect time to build the future together!
It’s the perfect time to build the future together!
Energized by the current renovations and recent grant awards, the Northampton Community Arts Trust continues its fundraising efforts in pursuit of its mission to preserve and create affordable and accessible space for creativity within our community. Join the hundreds of community members and local, state, and national elected officials in unlocking to full potential of The Workroom.
The Workroom is a beautifully finished space, but without suitable audience seating or lighting and sound equipment. We are currently using old, donated seating that can accommodate only half of the room's capacity as well as donated lighting and sound equipment that hardly activates the room's capabilities. A.P.E. in partnership with The Arts Trust are eager to unlock this space's full potential! We have applied for 1:1 matching grants from both Mass Development and the Cultural Facilities Fund and need to raise the match of +$100K.
The Workroom is a beautifully finished space, but without suitable audience seating or lighting and sound equipment. We are currently using old, donated seating that can accommodate only half of the room's capacity as well as donated lighting and sound equipment that hardly activates the room's capabilities. A.P.E. in partnership with The Arts Trust are eager to unlock this space's full potential! We have applied for 1:1 matching grants from both Mass Development and the Cultural Facilities Fund and need to raise the match of +$100K.
Please consider a gift of any amount and become a donor to the Workroom!
all donations are made through the Northampton Community Arts Trust
For information about rental rates and schedule, please contact Meredith Bove
Workroom/Theater Hawley - photo by Stephen Petegorsky; SCDT's WIP - photo by Peter Raper; Moving Water by Serious Play
TO EXPLORE PAST PROJECTS, VISIT THE A.P.E.@HAWLEY ARCHIVE
MORE ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORKROOM
RECENT FUNDING AWARDS
Your support for both programming and the complete buildout of the Workroom is important to us and to the community.
RECENT FUNDING AWARDS
- In March of 2022, the Northampton Community Arts Trust learned that it would receive 2.5 million dollars in Community Funding Project federal funds! These funds were sheparded to the project — and to our community — through the efforts and attention of Congressman Jim McGovern, to whom we are deeply grateful. In receiving these funds, the completion of 33 Hawley including the Workroom is now in sight! Northampton will soon be home to a fully operational and vibrant hub of performance and art-making spaces. So many of you have contributed your labor, artistry, attention, and funds to this vision. This award serves as a powerful affirmation of the potency of our mission to preserve affordable and accessible space for creativity and imagination, in perpetuity. Thank you for supporting us through all of these years.
- In the summer of 2021, The Northampton Community Arts Trust received its fourth matching grant from the Mass Cultural Council Cultural Facilities Fund! This matching grant of $100,000 helped to open The Workroom with a state of the art HVAC system.
- A matching grant from the Collaborative Workspace program at Mass Development has made possible the installation of a fully sprung floor for dancing. Learn More and Donate to the Build a Floor Project in honor of Nancy Stark Smith.
Your support for both programming and the complete buildout of the Workroom is important to us and to the community.
ENDORSEMENTS FOR A.P.E.'s WORKROOM
Laurie Sanders & Elizabeth Sharpe: “The city, and especially downtown, has always benefited from the energy and ideas that artists bring, and they have been bringing that energy here for almost 250 years.”
The first art space was built in 1786 on the third floor of a building that stood one block from 33 Hawley. Above the artisans’ shops on the first and second floors, was a giant (200 foot X 100 foot) open floor for dances, exhibits, and assemblies.
Since then, the existence of flexible art spaces has made Northampton the arts center that it is today. But now, Northampton needs a new space. The Workroom@33Hawley promises to be the new creative place where artists can mingle, experiment, and generate new work for Northampton’s big, enthusiastic audiences.
As a regular APE collaborator, and as a museum that thinks ahead, we couldn’t be more excited about this next phase—we are already hatching ideas for events in the Workroom. Hurry, please.
--Co-directors, Historic Northampton and just four blocks away
Roy Faudree: “Northampton needs a big raw safe space for children and the young to unleash their imagination: make ART.”
When No Theater came to Northampton in the early 70s (during the Nixon administration) local businesses were failing and there were many empty storefronts, lofts, classrooms, ballrooms, basements, tunnels, movie houses, a 19th Century theater, and WPA outdoor stages in parks that were available for our rehearsals and live performances. 50 years later we again have empty storefronts (and a Trump administration), but now the community needs to support the basic renovations necessary for occupancy of the Workroom/Theater at 33 Hawley. ART promotes growth.
--No Theater, Director
Jil Crary-Ross: “33 Hawley provides a space for making in the context of others.”
Painting is generally a solitary practice. As a visual artist, creating at 33 Hawley allowed me to expand my work in an interdisciplinary way with exposure to and interaction with performing arts. The Workroom/Theater will provide a space where multi-generation creativity can occur. This engagement is essential for the creative community of Northampton as well as kids and other community members seeking connection and education outside their daily routine.
--Painter and A.P.E. Board Member
Andrea Olsen: “The space opens the imagination and the floor is the foundation.”
Phase One is the most exciting! Opening the Workroom/Theater@33Hawley creates the frame to allow legal and healthy occupancy of a 3800 square foot room for creative work to flourish. A big, open uncluttered space that returns to empty after each residency has been the heart of Available Potential Enterprise’s (A.P.E.’s) curation vision since its origins on Main Street in l977 and will continue in this new venue. Donations at all levels demonstrate that we care what happens next in our community, at all ages and stages of life. We need each other for motivation and imagination!
--A.P.E. Board Member since l978 and Build-A-Floor Project Host
Sheryl Stoodley & Robin Doty: “Unique spaces allow unique things to happen.”
The Workroom/Theater@33Hawley is such a space. It’s scale and location have provided inspiration for actionable creation with a diverse group of theatre artists from all over the Valley, who feel welcomed coming to Northampton to make collaborative work. We want to see it finished and know that citizens and business owners alike will appreciate the value of what can and will happen in such a unique space. The arts community in Northampton needs a space like this. It’s time to make it a full-blown reality.
--Serious Play Theatre Ensemble -- Over 27 years creating theatre in Northampton
Jen Polins: “Opening this space supports people of all ages to work, gather, imagine, and create.”
The Workroom/Theater@33 Hawley inspires new views and processes—not pre-shaped by expectations and media images, but open to imagination and fresh vision. Help our young adults learn to become stewards of art by caring about space and place and connecting to their community. Supporting this project supports SCDT as a programming partner at Hawley Street. Our teens are ready and we need you to step up and help!
--The School for Contemporary Dance and Thought ( SCDT), Founder and Artistic Director of Hatchery teen dance company
Doug Anderson: “I love A.P.E.'s Hawley Street space.”
It is a flexible venue for a number of disciplines. The acoustics are excellent, the spaces can be configured for theater, dance, lectures, film and literary events. It is also an ideal gallery space. Just across the bridge from downtown Northampton, it's plugged into the Valley's creative nervous system.
--Poet, fiction writer, and memoirist
Yanira Castro: “Its magic is in its rawness, an open slate for the imagination.”
When I first saw the Workroom/Theater@33Hawley, I gasped. It is a performance artist's dream... a space where you are free to design and imagine how to gather people, how to bring work into a space. The possibilities are endless. For an out-of-town artist to have had the gift of this canvas was tremendous, and it is one that I hope the community preserves as a place of wonder, surprise and delight.
--Founder and Artistic Director: acanarytorsi, Brooklyn, NY
Henry Lyman: “This generous space will be a great addition to 33 Hawley Street as an arts facility and to the city as a whole.”
I have had the pleasure of attending or participating in events at 33 Hawley Street, poetry readings in particular. I have no doubt that the new workroom space will be as attractive, hospitable, and functional as the rest of the building. Its size will accommodate any number of projects as well as larger audiences for theater, readings, and dance—to which the proposed resilient floor is essential. I look forward to spending time there, both as a viewer and a participant.
--Poet, editor, translator, and former host and producer of WFCR's Poems to a Listener
Nick Verdi: As a filmmaker, there is a need for a huge, raw, enclosed and controllable place in which to create.
The Workroom/Theater@33Hawley is quickly becoming an essential element in the struggle for keeping physical art-making alive in the Valley. It has been a place for me to workshop ideas on a regular basis with actors for safely-distanced film shooting. Due to the massive size of the space and the possibility of opening the garage door to keep air circulating, it may be the only enclosed place for young people and teens to feel comfortable filming an indoors scene for a film or music video.
--Filmmaker
Brian Foote: “The Workroom/Theater@33Hawley provides a large accessible space to make and create art of all kinds by people of all kinds.”
I've been producing events in Northampton for over fifteen years. It has become increasingly more difficult to find affordable rehearsal and performance space in downtown Northampton. Please consider supporting the space.
--Director, Northampton Arts Council