Leslie and Mark Nolte are working to bring a new Iowa City performing arts venue for small audiences to life as our part of helping to make this truly The Greatest Small City for the Arts. 

By day, The James will serve as a classroom and workshop for the newest extension of our arts educational mission, a performing arts high school. By night, The James will host musicians, dancers, writers, plays, comedians, magicians and anyone else that needs an affordable stage to build an audience.  

Our plan is to collaborate with the other arts entities such as the Englert to curate amazing audience experiences and fill a niche in the local performing arts scene. Our vision is that new organizations and artists groups can incubate on this stage and grow into something bigger and better.  But they need a place to start.  That is what this space can be. 

What We Need

We are currently renovating our Northside building, the former home of Riverside Theatre, to create this exciting new space. Our new design includes making the stage larger and more flexible for a variety of uses, making the space more accessible for people with disabilities, upgrading the dressing rooms and front of house, with all new sound, lights and seating options.   

The Noltes are making this investment and taking the financial risk.  We will be operating The James as a Benefit Corp,  basically a business that won’t make any money but not a non-profit that competes with other arts organizations for annual operating expenses. As such, we would gratefully accept any help offsetting some of the startup costs and renovations to the space.   

(Please note, as we are not a non profit your contribution is not tax deductible, but can be a marketing expense for your business.)

Sponsor a Seat   

We are excited to continue our Seat Sponsorship campaign to honor the generosity of our community supporters.

• For $1,000, the name of your choice will be displayed on a plaque in our lobby for all future audiences to see.

• Our sponsors will be invited to our special pre-opening performances provided by local and national artists as our way of saying thank you.

Other Ways You Can Help

We hope you will consider supporting if you can, either monetarily or through raising awareness of what we’re building at The James. You can follow along with our renovation progress on Facebook or on Instagram @thejamestheater, and stay tuned for our upcoming shows. If you have other ideas on how you can help us bring this space to life, we are all ears at info@thejamesic.com! This community is so special to us and we want to make The James part of our gift back to keeping it connected, growing and cool.   

Thank you, 

With love, Leslie and Mark