For 28
years, Lansing’s Peppermint Creek Theatre Company has lived a vagabond
existence.
They have
moved from one theater to the next always looking for the best place to produce
their shows. They have moved from art galleries to floral conservatories to
churches to community rooms.
But despite
the challenge of adjusting to a new venue so often, founder and artistic
director Chad Swan-Badgero always managed to produce challenging plays of impressive
quality. Using amateur actors, they produced superb performances of dramas such
as “God of Carnage”, “Other Desert Cities”, “Venus in Fur”, “Indecent” and
musicals such as “Assassins,”, “Next to Normal”, “In the Heights” and “Parade”.
In the summer
of 2022 something magical happened. Tom Arthur, Pastor of Sycamore Creek Church,
with facilities in south Lansing and Potterville and ardent theater lover,
approached Swan-Badgero after a production he attended about an unusual idea.
He had recently
acquired a spacious church building on Lake Lansing Road with lovely grounds,
space galore and a central location.
Arthur looked at the facility and wondered how the space could serve the
community in addition to being a place of worship.
