Geyer Education Center: Expansion paves the way for theater classes, community impact
Olivia Goudy | Herald-Standard
The building next to the Geyer Performing Arts Center, which once housed a tax business, will become the new Geyer Education Center.
Olivia Goudy | Herald-Standard
The Geyer Education Center opened earlier this week.
Olivia Goudy | Herald-Standard
Kat Post (left), education director, and Mandy Onder, education manager, pose at the corner of the current Geyer Performing Arts Center and the new Geyer Education Center along Pittsburgh Street in Scottdale.
Olivia Goudy | Herald-Standard
A second-floor balcony is a perfect location for theater rehearsals and demonstrations, according to the education director at the new Geyer Education Center in Scottdale.
“This gives us wings.”
That’s how Kat Post described the recent purchase of the building next to the Geyer Performing Arts Center in Scottdale.
The three-story building next to the theater on Pittsburgh Street is slated to become the Geyer Education Center.
The building previously was the home of H&R Block during tax season for several years. Purchasing the building had been in talks for years, though it wasn’t a reality until this year.
Post, the education director and the “principle of the school” for Geyer, said she and Mandy Onder, Geyer education manager, got the keys mid-August, and though desks, cubicles and office supplies dotted the floors, they were already envisioning the possibilities.
Post said the building gives them an opportunity to expand and ultimately succeed in leaving a legacy. Onder, who works side-by-side with Post, noted the building’s potential impact on the community.
“Us getting this building is going to allow us to have our numbers grow. It affects the entire community,” Onder said. “These kids are going to grow up and be our leaders. They’re going to be able to lead a group of people and be confident.”
Post said her daughter, now 17, has grown up in the theater. Onder, who started her journey at the theater when she was 8 years old, said she hopes her daughter will do the same.
“I rose up because of the teachers that were here before me. I’m the legacy. And our children will become the legacy,” Onder said.
Post said they were supported and encouraged by Bob McDowell, board vice president and go-to man at the theater.
“He saw our spark. He supposed us,” Post said, adding that McDowell was supportive of the education center expansion ventures.
“He saw what we were doing as a former teacher, and he’s big our biggest encouragement, our biggest cheerleader,” Post said.
She also applauded Brad Geyer’s diligence and business savvy in the purchasing of the new building.
“We couldn’t have done this without them,” Post said.
Oh, the possibilities
Post and Onder said they plan launching a number of theater and music related classes. In the new building, they’ll be able to have music lessons, and dancing and acting classes. Post, a former English teacher, also hopes to one day have a writing course that would cover introspective and therapeutic writing, as well as journaling.
“It would have been hard to justify having space for things like that before,” Post said.
Programs offered at the education center would be for people of any age, Post said. It’s an added bonus, though, that they’ll be able to plan shows around kids.
This fall, Onder is in the process of booking school shows, whether it means bringing local school groups to the theater, or the Geyer performers going to a scheduled school. This year’s production, “Seuss,” also features homeschoolers — or as Onder noted, kids performing for kids.
“Being on stage can be really scary for kids. We’re that bridge for them. We help them overcome stage fright,” Onder said. “We help them discover who they are and be confident about it.”
And what the kids will take away from their experiences at the center will only go on to benefit them, according to Onder.
“Whatever they chose to be if it’s not in theater, they will be better for having learned to dance and to sing. They’ll know teamwork and submitting to authority, and self-awareness,” Post said.
Onder added that the kids get a sense of discipline through all of it.
There’s also a place for everyone to be involved, whether they want to be on stage, or are more introverted and prefer working on costumes, lights or sets.
The added space of the Geyer Education Center will give them the room to do so, while supporting the mission of the theater.
Down the line, the dynamic duo also hopes to explore theater planting — a process of going into other communities and teaching them about what the Geyer has done. They don’t have to have an old opera house, Onder said. It could be a business front or a church basement — as long as there are people who believe it can be done.
Overall, Post and Onder said they want to have a farther reach with the new building.
“Our idea of success if to leave a legacy for people to pick up — not even where we left off, but with us — to carry the torch as we run so we can have a brighter flame i n more directions,” Post said.