The Tryon Little Theater (TLT) board of directors has formed an ad hoc committee to find a permanent home for the local theater company.

Plans for the new committee were mentioned at the annual meeting of TLT’s membership Monday.

The theater company, which began as the Players Fortnightly in 1948, sold its barn theater on Harmon Field Road in 1964 and joined with the new Tryon Fine Arts Center (TFAC) effort, along with Tryon Crafts, Tryon Music Associates and later the Tryon Painters & Sculptors.

In 1999, TLT moved to the old furniture store on Hwy. 176 to gain more operational space, and then in 2005 moved to the old NAPA Auto Parts store on Hwy. 176.

It is now time for TLT to start the search to identify a location for a future, permanent home, the board wrote to the membership recently.

The Tryon Fine Arts Center recently reaffirmed that TLT is its resident theater company, and has a permanent home at TFAC, but the TLT board said the present TFAC facility cannot accommodate the physical needs of the theater group.

The TLT board said, TLT needs to have total access to and control of its space, not just for performance time, but for rehearsals, set construction and general production preparation. Therefore, the TLT board has determined that it is essential that TLT own and manage its own facility.

The board is considering building a permanent black box theater with sufficient space for prop, set and costume storage as well as set construction and rehearsal space.

TLT has asked the fine arts center to consider locating an independent TLT building on its campus, and has also been talking with the Town of Tryon about a possible location near the Depot.

TLT is committed to building as green and energy efficient building as possible as well as looking for a location that would require a minimum of additional parking and asphalt. Both these locations would allow for shared parking in town, the board wrote. The purpose of this committee is to research all those possibilities and to formulate a business plan to accomplish this goal.