Northern Stage hires almost exclusively out-of-state artists and staff members due to the specialized nature of our work. Without housing to offer our artists and recruits, we aren’t able to relocate them to the Upper Valley. Northern Stage currently spends over $400,000 per year on housing (rent, utilities, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, etc.) for staff and artists, and countless hours shuffling and reshuffling artists, cars, and collaborators from one site to another. 

Many of the short-term rental properties that we occupy take rental opportunities away from other citizens seeking to live in the Upper Valley. As rental rates and real estate prices continue to rise—we have experienced a 36% increase in rental prices over the last three years alone—Northern Stage staff and other Upper Valley community residents must not be priced out of the market Northern Stage helped to build. In a remarkable confluence of strategy and opportunity, Northern Stage has secured the right to develop a village property within a one-minute walk from the theater for a company housing development.