Course Description: Learn the story of Cache Valley’s arts landscape. Boasting six magnificent theatres, two semi-professional theatre companies, a ballet school, a modern dance company, an orchestra, four amateur musical theatre companies, two youth theatre companies, and dozens of visual artists, we still earn the nickname “the Athens of the West.” Study the pioneers who built performance halls as they carved out homes, the leaders who supported visual arts, the vaudeville performers who brought big city color (if often “a brevity of attire”), and the community visionaries who build on traditions of the past.

Course Instructor: Wendi Hassan is Executive Director of the Cache Valley Center for the Arts, which includes three Logan-City owned cultural facilities that are used by more than 50 organizations each year. In 2009, she was commissioned to conduct some research on the history of the “Capitol Theatre” (now the Ellen Eccles Theatre) and promptly went down the rabbit hole. She hasn’t emerged since. Wendi has degrees in theatre, arts administration, and public policy and business administration from USU and The Ohio State University.
whassan@CacheArts.org