A part of the community for more than sixty years, the Ashtabula Arts Center is a nonprofit, multi-arts facility featuring dance, theater, music, and the visual arts. From summer kid’s camp to ballroom dancing, the Ashtabula Arts Center offers performances, activities, classes, and other programming for all ages and all levels of artistic talents and abilities, from the beginner to the advanced student.
Our mission is to preserve and promote the arts through education and entertainment across cultural boundaries
— encouraging personal growth, cultural growth, and economic growth.
Theater Department
Our Theater Department offers year-round productions in two on-site venues. G.B. Community Theatre productions are performed from October through April in our 200-seat indoor, main stage theater. Productions include a variety of dramas, comedies, musicals, and more. Straw Hat Theatre is a 200-seat outdoor, tented pavilion theater where musical productions are produced June through August. G.B. Community Theatre and Straw Hat Theatre offer year-round opportunities for amateur actors of all ages, as well as those interested in design and technical theater. Our theater department also offers a variety of acting classes and outreach programming throughout the year for both children and adults.
Dance Department
Ballet Theatre Ashtabula is our resident, pre-professional dance company founded in 1981, which provides students and area dancers the freedom to fully develop their technical and artistic abilities. The Dance Department annually produces a full-scale production of The Nutcracker in December. A spring dance concert is also held each May, showcasing different styles of contemporary dance. Ballet Theatre Ashtabula also serves to bring dance to the community through outreach and mixed repertory concerts. The arts center’s dance studio, made possible by a CDC grant, is one of the finest facilities in northeastern Ohio with a basket weave construction sprung floor just like the one in New York’s Lincoln Center. A special marley floor also provides a smooth, safe surface, an important factor in injury prevention. Dance classes are offered year-round for students of all ages and include classical ballet, jazz, modern, ballroom, hip hop, tap, and more.
Music Department
The Music Department offers a variety of concerts, recitals, and classes, as well as individual music instruction in voice, clarinet, saxophone, piano, guitar, percussion, trumpet, French horn, trombone, flute, violin, and cello. “The Good Life,” a community vocal group consisting of area singers, performs annually during the holiday season and in the spring. “The Show-Offs” and “The Starlights” are the arts center’s young adult and youth choirs. Each is available for performing in outside venues such as festivals, weddings, parties, and more. Music classes and outreach programming are also available.
Visual Arts Department
The focus of the Visual Arts Department is to encourage creative stimulation and thought while providing an opportunity to experience the joy and satisfaction of creating works of art. Our permanent art collection features a number of works by renowned regional artists. Rotating gallery exhibits change monthly and feature the works of local, regional, and national artists. The gallery is open to the public during regular business hours, and admission is free. A wide variety of visual arts classes and workshops are offered including pottery, painting, sculpture, woodworking, drawing, photography, knitting, and screen printing. Individual instruction is available and outreach programming can also be arranged.
Take a stroll around our website and spend some time at the Ashtabula Arts Center. It’s Ashtabula County’s family place!
