Our History

The first meetings of the “Yakima Little Theatre Group” lead to the election of the first leadership team: Hal Millen, President; Mrs. H.C. Hines, Secretary; and Mrs. Jack Gilliam, Treasurer. Millen and his wife Lorna are considered the driving force behind the creation of community theatre in Yakima.

The YLTG performs its first production, “Icebound” by Owen Davis. The play is presented to a near-capacity crowd at Yakima’s Women’s Century Club and receives a great review from the Yakima Dailies. Other performance venues in those early days include J.M Parry Institute, Yakima Valley College, The Hotel Chinook, and a seldom used Quonset hut.

Yakima orchardist Elon Gilbert and family donate a fruit warehouse at 5000 Sunset Drive - now Lincoln Avenue - to the city of Yakima with the proviso that it be used as an arts center. The building is remodeled and improved multiple times in the coming years, mostly through the work of volunteers.

The Yakima Little Theatre Group goes through the incorporation process. They remain closely connected to Yakima Allied Arts and rents performance space from them.

The “Winnie Awards” are created by the YLTG board as a tongue-in-cheek honor to their outgoing president, Winston “Winnie” Hoffman. Hoffman ended up being an integral part of the company for 15 years. An award statuette is designed and cast by renowned Yakima visual artist Phil Kooser.

As the label “little theatre” no longer fits, the Yakima Little Theatre Group reinvents itself as the “Warehouse Theatre Company.” The name pays homage to the company’s history, the Gilbert family’s generosity, and the WTC’s seemingly permanent performance venue.

Just days after casting over 30 actors in “A Christmas Carol,” the company is evicted from their venue. The City of Yakima has decided the building is unsafe and Allied Arts receives a “Do Not Occupy” notice. With the help of Akin Center Theatre (ACT) owner Tony Akin, the production is successfully mounted that December in his performance space, a 140-seat black box theatre. Over the next five years, the WTC mounts plays at ACT and the 4^th Street Theatre in downtown Yakima, finding rehearsal space where they can.

The former home of the WTC and Yakima’s Allied Arts is razed and removed. The warehouse no longer stands.

Tony Akin offers to sell his building and theatre space to the Warehouse Theatre Company. Over the next five months, $1,000,000 is raised from generous donors and supporters and the WTC buys the building. A $160,000 promissory note was left to pay over the next five years; with patron support, it was paid off in half that time.

With the building purchase complete, the Warehouse Theatre Company opens its first play in its own home, “The Boys Next Door” by Tom Griffin.

The Warehouse stage is dark due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The theatre welcomes audiences back to “Clue: On Stage.”

The WTC begins a lasting partnership with East Valley Schools by staging “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever: The Musical” on the EVHS Performing Arts Center stage. It is the first play on stage in the brand-new facility.

The Warehouse Theatre Company has its busiest performance year in history. The mainstage season includes six fully produced shows; a summer intensive pre-professional production of “Phantom of the Opera;” multiple children’s theatre events; special performances including readers’ theatre offerings, multiple script-in-hand shows - one of which was “Botanica,” the company’s first ever play to be performed entirely in Spanish - and a cabaret. The company thrives today thanks to remarkable community support!