The Washington Concert Association and Washington Area Performing Arts and Events Center are combining forces to form a new performing arts group.

The group now known as the Washington Performing Arts Series is a collaboration of the WCA and WAPAEC to help bring performances of all kinds to the communities in southeast Iowa.

WPAS Board Member Julie Zahs explains how the collaboration started, “With our Washington Concert Association we had worked together and done a program together with each other just to kind of see how it worked having our groups working together. So we had kind of done a practice run with this.”

WPAS Co-President Millie Youngquist adds, “We knew each other, we had some of the same objectives and we thought by not duplicating efforts that we would be stronger for it.” 

The two groups initially began the process of coming together in 2020 and were forced to postpone their activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Zahs says the groups are doing fine financially but felt that combining efforts would better help them to continue providing entertainment for everyone in the surrounding area. The Washington Performing Arts Series has five events scheduled from October through April. Individual adult tickets can be purchased for $18, $10 for college students and $5 for students K-12. Adult season tickets are available for $50 and also grant you admission to other concert series in Fairfield, Ottumwa, Centerville, and Keokuk, a new feature this year. School-age children are admitted free with adult season ticket holders. You can pick up season tickets at the Washington Farmers Market on September 16th and 23rd. For a full list of upcoming events visit here.