The Needham Public School system is recognized for its award-winning performing arts programs, with students regularly securing gold and silver in regional competitions. Its three existing facilities for the performing arts, however — Pollard Middle School, Needham High School and Newman Elementary School — are no longer fit for their role: uncomfortable, underequipped and undersized, according to parents, faculty, school board members and an independent evaluation.
Now, with plans for a new Pollard in the works, arts advocates throughout the community are pushing to include a high-quality performing arts facility in the design. It’s a big ask: A new auditorium is not eligible for reimbursement from the state, which means the $7-to-$10 million estimate will likely be out-of-pocket, local dollars.
Time to ACT?
ACT for Needham is a resident group advocating for a modern, right-sized auditorium to be included in Pollard Project plans.
“I first started attending NHS Musicals in 2022 to see my neighbor perform,” ACT member Kate Linzmeyer said. “First I was blown away by the talent that we had at the high school level! And then I was disappointed that they perform in an elementary school, in such a small auditorium it can be difficult to get tickets to their performances.”
ACT shared a chart comparing Needham facilities with those of surrounding towns. Current auditorium standards recommend 750 to 1,000 seats and include features like a set shop, a sound and lighting booth equipped with digital controls, and a rigging system that uses cables, pulleys and counterweights to raise and lower scenery, lights and curtains. Eleven public stages in surrounding towns from Walpole to Wayland include most or all of the features, and many more have larger capacities. In Needham, Newman School has the largest auditorium, seating 563. Pollard Middle School has none of the features listed, while Needham High and Newman have only one or two.
“I have yet to sit through a performance in 12 years where we haven’t had some technical concern interfere with the performance,” said Tamatha Bibbo, principal of Pollard Middle School.
“At this point, we’re only two decades behind,” said Alisa Skatrud, vice chair of Needham’s School Committee, liaison to the Permanent Public Building Committee and member of the School Building Committee. “I think if we waited until Pollard was done, then we would be, you know, pushing three decades behind, and that’s just not really OK for a community of our caliber.”
Skatrud notes the deficiencies of Needham performance facilities compared to other towns are partly due to unfortunate timing. The last major project at the high school was 20 years ago; since then, performance spaces have been converted from analog systems to digital.
“Needham would have had to have been absolutely peering into the future and bleeding edge to have made these changes,” Skatrud said. “And that’s not really how Needham operates.”
The reviews are in
In 2022, NPS and the PPBC hired Hewshott International, a consulting firm specializing in theatrical design solutions, to assess existing facilities. Hewshott’s report, completed in 2023 after a five-month study, states: “It likely comes as no surprise that Pollard Middle and Needham High require significant work as the theatrical systems are several decades old. But even Newman Elementary, which was renovated and upgraded in 2012, requires updating due to the many fundamental technological shifts.”
“The current auditorium is in disrepair, does not adequately meet the needs of our performing arts program, is not handicapped accessible, has limited seating capacity (one grade level of students is not able to fit into our current auditorium) and is not utilized by community groups,” states an NPS “Educational Program Requirements” report published in September.
“It starts to impact the creative choices,” said Skatrud. “And our theater directors are fabulous. They make it look seamless when you have 60 kids running down the aisle to get onto the stage. But that’s not just like cute and fun; that is directly due to the limitations of our space, and it constrains what we can do.”
The three auditoriums are heavily used — not only for performing arts, but for classes, meetings, assemblies and speakers. All Needham students in sixth to eighth grade — 1,309 students at the time of the NPS report — are required to participate in a performing arts class. According to the report, 137 students are enrolled in a co-curricular afterschool arts program, and 127 students participate in each theatrical production.
The promise of Pollard
Pollard Middle School Project is seen by many as the most timely and cost-effective opportunity to build a new performance space that meets industry standards, educational and community needs.
“From a production standpoint, with the Pollard building on the horizon, it felt like a really good time to say, what do we need as a town for auditorium space?” said Skatrud. “What will serve our performance groups, what will serve our performing arts curriculum, but also what will serve the town as a whole? We really are very far behind our neighboring towns and far behind towns that are way less resourced than Needham in terms of our performing space.”
The question is not if an auditorium will be included in plans, but what caliber auditorium will be prioritized. An assembly space is already part of the existing Pollard Project plans, but could be limited to a minimal design.
A larger auditorium will increase the building’s construction footprint, which could lead to issues with some of the proposed designs.
“The designers really came back and said, we can figure out 750 seats,” Skatrud said. “Probably can’t do 1,000, so I think that’s really kind of the conversation: can we do 750 to really meet the needs of the community? It’ll still put us under what most of the towns around us have in terms of seating in a single theater in town somewhere.”
Bibbo wonders if consulting with similarly resourced towns could spotlight a solution.
“We have neighbors right in Wellesley that have a beautiful center, Norwood, Canton,” she said. “I think we should reach out to those towns and say, ‘How did you do it?’ They figured it out. You know, they got it. They didn’t necessarily have MSBA pay for them either.”
The auditorium was discussed at the Pollard School Building Committee meeting Sept. 15 as one of four key issues. The goal is to choose one site and building configuration plan by mid-December — this will move the project into the next phase of design, resulting in more accurate cost estimates.
At this point, no designs are finalized and no decisions have been made.
“It’s really incumbent upon, I think, the people in Needham, to say, is ‘this something we’re interested in investing in?’” Bibbo said. “Because (a large auditorium) really would be a cost above the building of the school itself. I’m hopeful that other towns have done it and done it well.”
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