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Kirkland Performance Arts Center Upcoming Event Dates & Tickets
About this Venue
Mission: To provide a gathering place where people come together to express themselves creatively, exchange ideas, share culture, and connect with one another.
Vision: For KPC to be a community where people of all ages, incomes, and backgrounds are uplifted, inspired, and connected to one another through performances and shared experiences.
Values: Accessible for all ages and incomes, provides a breadth of performance; music, dance, theater, film, lectures etc., reflects the diversity of the community.
The notion of building a theater in Kirkland germinated from Village Theatre’s search for a new facility in the mid-1980s. Community and business leaders came together to create a home for the company in Kirkland by building a new theater in Kirkland’s picturesque downtown, within easy walking distance of Kirkland’s many fine restaurants, shops, and galleries.
Village Theatre secured a facility in Issaquah, leaving the founders in Kirkland to decide in which direction to go. The campaign to build Kirkland Performance Center was the work of hundreds of volunteers and visionary leaders who, over a ten-year period, raised $5,800,000 from nearly one thousand donors, including government agencies, corporations, foundations and individuals. All of these contributors were motivated to bring the highest quality, professional music, theater and dance to the Eastside.
By early 1997 the capital campaign was completed and, in partnership with the City of Kirkland, construction began. A week of Opening Celebration events kicked off the theater in a big way in June of 1998.
Designed by Becker Architects, our 394 seat theater is spacious, yet retains an intimate feel. The farthest seat is just 13 rows – 40 feet – from the stage; the steep rake of the house provides excellent sightlines throughout the theater. The seats are ample with extra leg room for comfortable seating. The acoustics in the theater are designed to work equally well for both music and the spoken word.
