The Charlottesville Ballet will open a 10,000-square-foot training school on Preston Avenue next fall and expand its performance season from four productions to eight, the company announced Monday.
The $2.3 million expansion, funded through a combination of private donations and a Virginia Commission for the Arts grant, marks the largest growth in the 17-year-old company's history. The new facility will include five studios, a 150-seat black-box theater, and accessible dressing rooms—a significant upgrade from the ballet's current single-studio space on Allied Street.
A New School for a Growing Demand
The Charlottesville Ballet Academy, set to open in September 2025, will offer more than 40 weekly classes for students ages 3 to adult, including beginner, pre-professional, and adaptive dance tracks. Annual tuition will range from $1,200 to $4,800, with need-based scholarships covering up to 75 percent of costs for qualifying families.
Artistic Director Sara Jane Smith said the school was designed in response to outreach programs in Albemarle and Greene county schools, where students regularly expressed interest in ballet but lacked affordable training options within 30 miles.
"We kept hearing the same thing: 'We want to dance, but we can't get to Richmond or Roanoke,'" Smith said. "This school is our answer to that gap. We're not building a pipeline only for professional dancers. We're building one for anyone who wants to move, create, and belong."
The academy will also launch a tuition-free summer intensive in 2026 for 20 scholarship students selected from regional public schools.
Expanded Season, New Repertoire
The performance expansion begins in fall 2025 with a remount of Giselle at the Paramount Theater, followed by the company's first full-length contemporary commission from choreographer Amy Hall Garner in spring 2026. The season will grow from four productions to eight, split between the Paramount and the new black-box theater.
The company plans to hire six additional dancers on full-season contracts, expanding the roster from 14 to 20. Guest artists from Ballet Memphis and Dance Theatre of Harlem are slated to perform and teach master classes throughout the year.
Why Now
The expansion follows a post-pandemic rebound that saw the ballet's 2023-24 season ticket sales exceed pre-2020 levels by 18 percent, according to Executive Director Mark Deluca. A $1.5 million lead gift from longtime patrons Eleanor and Robert Hartley, announced in 2022, enabled the Preston Avenue property purchase.
"We had a choice: stay small and safe, or use this moment to meet the demand we'd been seeing for years," Deluca said. "The community made that choice for us through their attendance and their giving."
Community Partnerships
The ballet has also formalized partnerships with Charlottesville City Schools and the Piedmont Virginia Community College theater program. Those agreements will provide free matinee performances for approximately 3,000 students annually and a shared costume shop and scenery storage facility.
Adaptive dance classes for students with disabilities, previously offered once monthly, will move to weekly sessions at the new school.
What's Next
The company will hold a public open house at the Preston Avenue facility on August 16. Season subscriptions for the 2025-26 performance year go on sale June 1, with single tickets available starting August 1.
