Uptown! Knauer Performing Arts Center, has recently been awarded $150,000 in the Longwood Foundation Grant.
Photo: Uptown!
The non-profit theater organization, Uptown! is excited and proud to have recently received the Longwood Foundation Grant worth $150,000. Director Angela Scully called being awarded this grant “a great honor, along with the confidence of the Longwood Foundation.” The grant will be used by Uptown! to pay down debt incurred during the Armory’s transformation into a community theater. Uptown! will also use the grant as a challenge to encourage other donors to join in the debt reduction effort.
The Longwood Foundation looks to invest in the arts and education in Delaware, and within a four-mile radius of Longwood Gardens in the southern part of Pennsylvania’s Chester County. According to Sharon Gabor, Uptown’s marketing associate, the Longwood Foundation looks “to make grants that will accelerate an organization towards its own success, and in the process help solve a community challenge in our geographic boundaries.”
Since Uptown opened in December 2016, the theater has been praised many times, often being said to have the best seats in town for live entertainment and various speaker series. Uptown puts on many different performances in collaboration with The Resident Theatre Company, Windish Music and Productions, Better Than Bacon Improv Comedy, Opera tutti, the Jazz Cocktail Hour, Yajaira Paredes Latin Productions and offers performing arts education with West Chester Studio for the Performing Arts at Uptown! Not just a performance space, Uptown! also welcomes community involvement as host to private and public functions, meetings and receptions.
Patrons visit Uptown! from more than 38 zip codes. The performing center is, according to Sharon, “so appreciative of the thoughtful, philanthropic individuals and organizations, such as the Longwood Foundation, that contribute to their success.”
Check out Uptown! online, call 610.356.2787, or check out our Summer Fun Guide for more information!
