This weekend, another performing arts center is opening in North Texas. But as KERA’s Jerome Weeks reports, this one’s on the campus of the Trinity Christian Academy in Addison.

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The new performance hall has 916 seats – that’s bigger than the Wyly Theatre in Dallas. Architect Jeff Forrest designed the hall primarily to fill the needs of the academy’s 1500 students in grades K through 12. But headmaster David Delph says he fully expects the center will also be used by other groups in the community.

Delph: “We’d love to start a lecture series in different areas. I could see politicians interested in holding town hall meetings. I could see dance recitals, other companies or institutions that don’t have the facility.”

The Trinity Christian Academy’s new performing arts center replaces an older auditorium that was used as a theater and chapel. The new center features a second, smaller, multi-use theater, plus its own scene shop, a band and choir room and recording facilities. All of that still doesn’t put it in the Eisemann Center or Bass Performance Hall weight class. But at a cost of nearly 7 million dollars, the center is a significant investment in the arts for the small but well-financed school.

Delph says raising the money was hard – compared to raising money for athletic programs. But he believes the arts are very much a part of the 40-year-old school’s religious mission.

Delph: “It will rally our community through the arts – around what God has designed in beauty and goodness and truth. One of the first things he did was create, and it gives us the opportunity to create in the same way.”

The ribbon-cutting ceremony will be Sunday afternoon.