Written by JEFFREY WARD
Photos courtesy of THE DONALD W. NIXON CENTRE

Just east of downtown Newnan stands an edifice of grand proportions known as the Donald W. Nixon Centre for the Performing and Visual Arts.

Here’s a true-or-false pop quiz:

The Donald W. Nixon Centre was financed and built by a wealthy benefactor. False.

The Nixon Centre was built to host rock concerts. False.

The Nixon Centre’s Patrons of the Centre organization is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. True.

Owned by the Coweta County School System, the Nixon Centre was financed with Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) funding and opened in 2004. While other school districts might dream about having access to such a world-class facility, Newnan is fortunate to have this outstanding facility.

Centre Director Cathe Nixon is effusive in her praise for what the school system offers the community through the Nixon Centre.

“We are especially indebted to the direction and foresight of the Coweta County School System,” she said. “It is fantastic that we have their support, encouragement and their vision to share with our students.”

According to Nixon, the Centre strives to be a “house of excellence – an extension of the classroom no matter the age of the student.” It meets this goal by introducing community members to the arts in a variety of ways, from holding art shows to concerts.

The idea of the facility first germinated in the mind of former Coweta County School Superintendent Richard Brooks. After Coweta County voters approved the SPLOST measure in 1997, construction began in 2002 and the Centre opened on April 1, 2004. Donald W. Nixon served as the centre’s first director and, by all accounts, its visionary engine. A former coordinator of fine arts for the local school system, Nixon steadfastly bucked the national trend of underfunding the arts, and he brought that creative energy to the Centre, according to Director Cathe Nixon.

The facility features an art gallery, lecture halls, dressing rooms and an expansive lobby capable of hosting galas and big events. The crowning glory is the 1,000-seat, state-of-the-art theater.

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Before the 2020 pandemic, the Centre was beyond busy, according to Cathe Nixon. Statistics from the 2018-2019 season were eye-popping: An estimated 130,000 people passed through the Centre’s doors. More than 12,000 students participated in 22 professional lectures, shows and master classes. More than 9,600 members of the community attended 18 shows by touring companies.

In 2017, the school system revived the Superintendent’s Theater Arts Resource (S.T.A.R.) program, a summer program in which all three of Coweta County’s high schools take part with performances directed by the high school teachers and produced by the Nixon Centre. In 2018, nearly 200 students participated in summer S.T.A.R. theater and visual arts camps.

While 2020 brought a change in procedures, the Centre remained active for the most part.

“Technically, we never did close but adopted and strictly adhered to The Center for Disease Control’s COVID guidelines,” said Cathe Nixon. “Because of the enormous size of the Centre’s theater and lobby, we easily and safely accommodated social distancing standards and carried on with most regularly scheduled faculty activities.”

Some of the Centre’s more popular pre-pandemic programs are tentatively being revisited, including the Centre Strings program, which originated in 2004 under the auspices of Donald Nixon and Lyn Schenbeck as a community orchestra open to students of all ages. Another of the Centre’s longtime programs, the Masterworks Chorale, which consists of local amateur singers, routinely performed at least three concerts annually until the roadblock of COVID stopped activity last year.

While the Nixon Centre is financially supported by the school system, a nonprofit sector undergirds private financial assistance with fundraising through Patrons of the Centre. Along with providing funding for the Centre, the Patrons provide scholarships for students of the Arts, and they fund Grow the Arts summer camps. NCM