A years-long push to establish a private performing and visual arts school in Naperville is at a critical juncture as hopes to open next year run up against financial and location constraints.
The Illinois Conservatory for the Arts — formerly the Academy of the Arts — is honing in on a fall 2025 launch. The prospective start, however, is not set in stone, says Dylan Ladd, co-founder and executive director. More fundraising and a firm address to call home are needed before an opening date can be set, he said.
For now at least, bringing the school to life in a year’s time is the goal.
“Our No. 1 priority is how do we get a school across the finish line?” Ladd said.
At this point, Ladd and those behind the venture — a team of more than a dozen artists and educators — are looking to move the needle by leasing and operating out of a 20,000-square-foot facility at 1323 Bond St., just off of Route 59.
Nothing has been signed to guarantee that’s where the school will go. But if they can make it happen, they will, Ladd said.
Leasing is a change from how the conservatory was initially conceived. Back in 2021, when the concept was just coming together, the idea was to construct an $80 million facility to house the school, a 1,200-seat auditorium and an outdoor amphitheater.
That vision has since been scaled back. Should the conservatory land at the Bond Street location, the school would be composed of different types of classrooms, some catering to a high level arts curriculum and others to a rigorous academic program, Ladd explained.
Arts curriculum would cover vocal and instrumental music, music production, theater, technical theater, visual arts, animation, illustration and dance. The revised facility would also include a 1,961-square-foot black box theater and a 1,371-square-foot dance studio. Ladd estimates the current plan will cost $1 million to $1.5 million.
Asked about the shift in scope, Ladd said “we’ve done a lot of learning” since the school was first envisioned and that raising enough funds for plans today is “still a heavy lift as an organization.”
“We’ve been working pretty hard over the past couple of years to raise capital to build out a space,” Ladd said, “and in that time, I’ll be honest, it’s been a huge learning curve for us because we’re teachers and artists so we don’t really understand how that piece works.”
Fundraising, as a result, has been slow. Not only has that pared down facility aspirations, but it’s also made even just nailing down a site to move into difficult, Ladd said.
Repeatedly, the conservatory team has found themselves in a position where they’ve identified a potential location only to have it fall through because they didn’t have the funding needed to close the deal before someone else snagged the space. The Bond Street facility is “probably the fourth or fifth” site they’ve pursued, Ladd said.
To shore up their efforts, the conservatory recently added a fundraising professional to its staff. With their help, the conservatory will be running a capital campaign in coming months “that’s going to be pivotal to this program and to launching the school,” Ladd said.
The campaign will be kicking off with a Nov. 14 event at the Bond Street site. Called “IMAGINE,” it will be an interactive-style open house with performances and activities to showcase what the school will offer once operational, Ladd says. Tickets for the event are now on sale and available online at ILConservatory.org/imagine.
The campaign will run from November through February, when the conservatory hosts what has become its annual fundraising concert and gala at North Central College’s Wentz Hall. At that point, the hope is to have a gauge of “what everything is looking like financially,” Ladd said.
They need to raise about $500,000 to open, he said. That would be on top of funds accrued to date, which includes $250,000 in state money that have been committed to the project.
Ladd added that it’s hard to say how much the conservatory has raised in all so far because while they seek funding, they’ve also been actively building a network of alternative community programming.
For three years now, the conservatory has been offering different performing arts education opportunities not bound to waiting for a dedicated school site.
Supplemental programming began with intensive classes to start engaging with the local community but has since grown to include regular after-school improv and dance classes. The classes are held in rented space at the large Matrix Club entertainment venue
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off Route 59.The idea that the conservatory could — and should — start tapping into community interest ahead of establishing a school came from artistic director Chadaé Nichol, a Joliet native who’s gone on to perform on Broadway.
Speaking to discussions she had with Ladd early on into charting the conservatory’s path forward, Nichol said, “I was really like, let’s get our hands first. Let’s get our feet on the ground. Let’s meet these people, meet these kids that are in Naperville so that we can grow together.”
The response has been “beautiful to see,” Nichol said. To date, the conservatory has had more than 200 students enrolled across programming.
“It’s exciting,” she said. “(It tells us) that what we’re trying to do is possible. And that our hunch was right, we didn’t have to wait.”
It’s also a signal that when the conservatory is operating on a full scale, “we’re going to be creating the most amazing artists,” Nichol said.
“Just imagine when we do get that building and we’re able to do this on a daily basis,” she said. “Like, we were going to be changing lives.”
If all goes as hoped with fundraising and leasing, the conservatory is looking to open its school doors next fall with about 40 to 60 students to start, Ladd said. There are about 100 prospective students already signed up as interested in being part of the inaugural class.
Based on the list so far, there’s a good chance the school’s first round of students will focus on middle-schoolers and early high-schoolers, Ladd said.
Ultimately, the aim is to cater to all grades, from kindergarten through seniors in high school. But as the school gains its footing, the conservatory team is more than happy to welcome whatever age groups, in whatever space, whenever possible. They’re determined to see their aspirations realized — however they can.
“Our team’s dedicated. Everybody wants to see this happen,” Ladd said. “We’ve been willing to shift all kinds of stuff because of it. … There’s something so special about being in a place where everybody in that room loves the thing they do. … So I’m just really excited for us to get the school open.”