Our Church Building Has Dressing Rooms...Does Yours?

 One cool things about older buildings (actually, there are many cool things about older buildings...), is that they are unique. In our quest for efficiency, we've sacrificed many of the things that unique buildings possess. In our religion, we have a lot of buildings...fewer and fewer of the old ones still exist. That's a shame. Of course, I can understand the need to upgrade, to build the new ones in a like manner--it's cost-effective. I imagine that's the biggest reason. But there's something about the old churches, the new ones just can't touch.

We attend church in a century-old building on Factory Road in Garland, Utah. It is beautiful. There's a balcony in the main hall, and doors to the outside everywhere...I can't recall another church with so many exterior doors. It's also got something I've never seen in any other LDS church building...

Men's and women's dressing rooms.

You may be thinking, "That's not unusual...our church as rooms where men and women change after, for example, baptisms. But no, dear reader. This is not that. These dressing rooms are nowhere near the baptismal font. No, these rooms are near the stage. Therefore, they're dressing rooms for theatrical productions.

As a actor, I love that there are dressing rooms for performers in the church. It means that when they designed the building, they felt performances were worthy enough to dedicate floor space to the craft.

I've not been in the rooms. I wonder how often they're even used...for the past couple of years, lots of things have been shelved, including theatrical productions. Hopefully, that changes. Hopefully, the dressing rooms will be used again soon.