Elm Street Arts Founding Artistic Director Retires

Gay Lora Grooms, the founding artist director of Woodstock-based Elm Street Cultural Arts Village, has retired.

Grooms used her personal savings to open the former Towne Lake Arts Center in 2002 in a small converted warehouse space.

The nonprofit organization has since moved into the Chambers at City Center where they provide live plays and musicals, camps and classes year-round.

Grooms said the “needs of her growing family,” which includes nine grandchildren all over the country, and her parents were the catalyst to retirement.

“It’s just time to put my family first,” she added.

Grooms created a performing arts education program during the 1990s that has reached thousands of children and teenagers. Many of the current teachers at Elm Street Arts were once her students.

“I just want to say thank you again and again to everyone who ever played a part, either on or off stage, to keep the arts center going for so many years,” she added. “ It could not have happened without you.”

While Elm Street Arts currently operates out of the Chambers at City Center in downtown Woodstock, members of the organization’s Board of Directors have been in the process of fundraising and remodeling the old Reeves home that sits on Elm Street.

The home and the land it sits on would be used as the permanent place for Elm Street Arts, and could feature a community theatre, visual arts center and green space.

Photo credit: Gay Lora Grooms