On Thursday, January 16th, Manchester Regional High School held a grand opening ceremony for its new Performing Arts Center. Dignitaries and special guests from Haledon, North Haledon, Prospect Park, and from throughout Passaic County gathered for the ceremony including the President of the PCEA, Susan Butterfield and Executive County Superintendent of Schools, Kesha Drakeford. The history of the space and highlights of the renovation were shared with the attendees by Superintendent of Schools John Coviello and Board of Education President Liliana M. Baez-Molina. Superintendent Coviello was quoted as saying that the MRHS PAC will ensure that students are preparing for the performing arts opportunities and careers of tomorrow, today.
The MRHS Performing Arts Center consists of a Main Theater that can accommodate 687 guests and boasts fully computerized, state of the art theater lighting, sound, and the first 12’ x 34’ digital video wall in a K-12 school in New Jersey. This technology also allows this space to be utilized as a cutting edge ESports Arena that will be used to host local, County, and State ESports Tournaments. Surrounding the Main Theater are newly renovated dressing rooms and bathrooms as well as a remodeled instrumental room and Auxiliary Theater that contains the same theater lighting, sound, ESports console technology, and digital video wall on a smaller scale. Both the Main and Auxiliary Theater are equipped with multiple professional tracking cameras that can monitor any performance for recording purposes. Coming soon for the 2025-2026 school year, a cutting edge digital music recording studio will be installed between the instrumental room and the Auxiliary Theater that will allow not just computerized digital music production but the ability to to monitor and record jam sessions in the instrumental room.
Following the cutting of the ribbon, guests were treated to a three minute, jaw dropping demo of the Main Theater's lighting, sound, and digital video wall capabilities. Guests were then invited to tour the rest of the MRHS PAC where they enjoyed the MRHS Drumline playing in the instrumental room and observed MRHS Varsity ESports Players engaging in a variety of video games at various ESports consoles within the Auxiliary Theater. The PC Manchester Regional High School District would like to thank all those who made this renovation possible and all those who came to enjoy the grand opening of the new MRHS Performing Arts Center!