Whidbey Playhouse Association

Over the next several years, the Whidbey Players performed in schools, the basement of a credit union, a movie theater on the nearby Navy base and anywhere else that would have them. In the late 1960s, they leased an unused church auditorium, converted it to a theater and renamed it and themselves the Whidbey Playhouse. Then catastrophe struck: a suspected arson fire in 1973 destroyed the building and all the props, sets and costumes inside. Back to square one. But then the community really did step in. A group of civic leaders, led by long-time Whidbey News-Times Publisher Wallie Funk, believed in the value of the Playhouse and decided that the old Christian Reformed Church building on Midway Boulevard, empty and for sale, could be a theater.