Playwrights' Center

Cultivating Creativity & Community

The Playwrights’ Center’s new home brings the creative process under one roof, from individual writing and rehearsal to teaching, collaboration, and performance. The facility supports more than 2,500 writers each year and gives the fifty-year-old organization a more visible and accessible presence in St. Paul’s Creative Enterprise Zone.

HGA transformed a warehouse assembled over three eras—1913, the 1950s, and the 1990s—into a connected center for artists. Removing the garage that separated the original building from a later addition made room for a new public entrance marked by weathering steel and a tall, daylit gathering space. Enlarged windows and new connections between levels bring light and movement into the existing structure, while its brick, timber, and industrial character remain visible. Adaptable writing rooms, classrooms, staff workspaces, a rehearsal studio, and a flexible 150-seat theatre support a play through every stage of its development. 

The design was shaped through conversations with staff, board members, and more than 100 playwrights and theatre professionals, each compensated for their participation. Their input informed both the building’s organization and its everyday details, including open spaces for gathering, quiet places for concentrated work, inclusive seating and restrooms, and amenities that acknowledge the practical and emotional demands of creative work. Together, these spaces create a durable working home for artists and support the Playwrights’ Center as it enters its next fifty years.