Center for the Arts at Kayenta

A small house in the desert

The Center for the Arts at Kayenta is the performing arts venue inside Kayenta Art Village, on Coyote Gulch Court in Ivins. It is a small room by design, which makes it a very different proposition from Tuacahn's outdoor amphitheatre a few minutes away: chamber-scale theater, music and film rather than large-cast musicals against a sandstone backdrop.

Programming

The season mixes plays, concerts, film screenings and community events. Its New Play Lab presents staged readings of new work over a run of days each year — unusual programming for a town this size, and enough to draw playwrights from outside the region.

A staged reading is a genuine form rather than a rehearsal. Actors read from scripts with minimal movement and no set, so the audience hears the writing directly, and the playwright hears where it works. For new plays it is the cheapest way to test a script in front of people, which is why new-work development almost always passes through it.

Practical

The theater sits in the middle of the art village, so an evening here pairs naturally with the galleries and Xetava Gardens Cafe before curtain. Parking is on site. Because the house is small, popular nights sell out in a way they would not at a larger venue.

See also a Kayenta day trip and Kayenta Art Village.