Clear Space Theatre in Rehoboth Beach is getting a major grant to expand its programming, both on stage and in the realm of arts education.
The $350,000 grant from the Longwood Foundation is a matching grant to be distributed over the next two and a half years, meaning that Clear Space will need to match the funding through its own donors and revenues. The grant program will solve a major problem facing the theatre company - space constraints. While the company has signed an agreement with Rehoboth Beach for a major expansion project, that won’t be complete for several years.
Clear Space’s Managing Director, Joe Gfaller, says while the new facility is years away, the space needs are a very current issue.
“The room that we perform all of our shows in is also the same room where we rehearse all of our shows, where all of our education classes take place, and where all of our sets are built,” he says. “Those things cannot happen at the same time, so the calendar has become a very kind of complicated Tetris puzzle to fit all the pieces in place.”
Clear Space plans to use the grant money to lease more space for its Arts Institute programs, which includes summer camps, the Broadway Bound and Spotlight on Young Performers programs for youth, and the Legends program for people over 50.
“It's going to increase in this first year, 2026, the number of enrollments possible for the Arts Institute by over 30%,” Gfaller says.
The company also plans to open a second, black box theatre next year for smaller productions. That means not only more productions, but longer runs for Clear Space’s main stage shows.
“In total, we'll have lots more room for lots more folks to come and experience great live theater in Rehoboth Beach without sacrificing the balance of programming that I think Clear Space does so beautifully, where we do work that's new and inventive alongside great classics,” Gfaller explains.
Still, he notes, the space problem is, in some ways, a good problem for Clear Space to have.
"The engagement in great art and interest in art here in Sussex County, I think, has really exploded,” he says.
Clear Space’s season continues with the Spotlight on Young Performers’ production of Anastasia next month and main stage performances of Dear Evan Hansen in May.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
