Since 1933 Orem
Three venues, one name, two organizations
The SCERA, and the pool that is not part of it
The SCERA is a nonprofit arts organization in Orem, founded in 1933, that runs a 1941 cinema at 745 South State and an outdoor amphitheater built into a hillside in SCERA Park. The swimming pool a hundred yards from that stage shares the name but belongs to the City of Orem, and telling the two apart is the one thing worth doing before you drive over.
By Scott Buehler, Moving Utah
Updated October 2026
The short answer
The SCERA is a nonprofit arts organization in Orem, founded in 1933, that runs two venues. The SCERA Center for the Arts at 745 South State opened as a movie house in 1941 and holds two indoor houses, a gallery and a free city history museum. The SCERA Shell is an outdoor amphitheater built into a hillside in SCERA Park, with lawn seating for a summer season of musicals, concerts and outdoor films. One box office sells both, and single tickets run cheap: an adult saw a staged musical on the grass for $15 in the 2026 season. The one trap is the swimming pool a hundred yards away in the same park. It carries the SCERA name but it is a City of Orem facility, run by Orem Recreation, so the theater box office cannot sell pool passes and the pool desk cannot sell theater seats.
The SCERA in numbers
1933
when the organization was founded
1941
when the Center opened as a movie house
733
seats in the Clarke Grand Theatre
1984
when the outdoor Shell opened
The three rooms
A hillside, a grand house and a second screen, sorted by season
The arts organization programs three spaces and they do not compete with each other. One is outdoors and summer only, one is a large indoor auditorium open the whole year, and one is a smaller room that takes the films and the studio work. Here is which is which, and where each one sits.
| The SCERA Shell | Clarke Grand Theatre | Showhouse II | The SCERA Pool | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who runs it | The SCERA | The SCERA | The SCERA | The City of Orem |
| Where | 600 South 400 East, in the middle of SCERA Park | 745 South State Street | 745 South State Street | 699 South State Street |
| Capacity | More than 4,000 on the grass hillside | 733 seats | 450 seats | Outdoor pool: two slides, a zero-entry beach, a small lazy river |
| Season | June to August | All year | All year | Usually Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day (May 23 to September 7 in 2026), closed Sundays |
| What plays there | Three musicals, seven concerts and six outdoor films in 2026 | Films, concerts and stage productions | Films and smaller productions | Nothing; it is a swimming pool |
| How you buy | SCERA box office, season or single | SCERA box office | SCERA box office | Orem Recreation season pass or gate admission |
Operators, capacities and the 2026 season as published by the SCERA and the City of Orem. The Shell opened in 1984, and the city reports it drawing upward of 60,000 people across a single summer, which for a community amphitheater in a city of under a hundred thousand people is a serious number. Directions to the Shell
Season seating for the Shell disappears in June, and the cheap chair fix is capped at a hundred cards. Season tickets go on sale at the start of April, first to the previous year's holders and a day later to everyone else, and they come off sale in late June or when the seating sells out, whichever comes first. In 2026 those dates were 1 and 2 April, with sales ending 20 June. A season ticket covers the whole outdoor lineup. The separate chair punch card, which reserves a rented low chair at every musical and concert, ran $40 in 2026 and is capped at one hundred cards for the season. If you are building a summer around this venue, both of those decisions belong in April, not July.
What a summer costs
Sixteen events, and three price tiers on the same hillside
The shape of the outdoor season is steady from year to year: three staged musicals, a run of concerts, and a handful of outdoor movie nights, which together add up to the sixteen events a season ticket covers. In 2026 that was three musicals, seven concerts and six films, with a big-band show like Guys and Dolls anchoring the summer. The exact titles and the guest artists change every year, and the SCERA posts the new lineup each spring, so treat any single year's bill as a sample rather than a fixture.
Single admission is where the value shows. In the 2026 season a musical on the lawn was posted at $15 for an adult and $10 for a child or senior, and an outdoor film at $5 and $3. Those are not introductory prices or a promotion, they are what the organization charges, and they are the reason the hillside fills front to back on a warm Friday. The films are a deliberate loss leader and are included free with a season ticket.
The season ticket is a ladder rather than a single number, and it is worth reading before you pick a tier. General admission is the grass. Reserved Section B and Reserved Section A buy actual seats instead of lawn, and they run roughly one and a half and two times the general admission price. Every tier covers the same sixteen events, so what you are paying for is the seat, not the program.
| 2026 season ticket | Adult | Child aged 3 to 11 | Senior aged 65 and over |
|---|---|---|---|
| General admission, on the grass | $150 | $125 | $125 |
| Reserved Section B | $250 | $225 | $225 |
| Reserved Section A | $300 | $275 | $275 |
| Chair punch card, 100 available | $40 | $40 | $40 |
| Chair rental on the night | $2 | $2 | $2 |
2026 SCERA Shell season ticket prices as published by the SCERA. Prices are reset each spring, so treat this table as the 2026 record rather than next year's answer, and confirm the current figures before you plan around them.
A staged musical with a live band, outdoors, for fifteen dollars on the grass, is the best value in Utah Valley and it is not close.
The half nobody finds
A gallery and a free museum inside a 1941 cinema
Gallery 101 and the Orem Heritage Museum
Two things near the Center at 745 South State are almost never mentioned outside Orem. Gallery 101 is a working exhibition space inside the Center. The Orem Heritage Museum is a free museum of the city's own history, with family tours available. It has had its own building just south of the Center, at 777 South State, since November 2012, and it is open weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m. Few visitors know either one is there.
It is worth a deliberate visit rather than an accidental one. A free local history museum a short walk from a working 1941 cinema is an unusual thing, and pairing a matinee with a walk to the museum makes a complete indoor afternoon on a single ticket.
The teaching half
Programming is only part of what the organization does. It runs an arts education program with classes in drama, art, dance and voice through the fall and winter, ballroom lessons on Saturday evenings, and it rents out facilities, costumes and props. It leans heavily on volunteers, which is a big part of how a community arts organization of this scale reaches ninety years in a city this size.
If you are weighing a move to Orem, that teaching half may be the more consequential one. A summer season is something you attend. A year-round arts education program inside the city is something a household can use every week, and it is the sort of thing that never shows up in a listing.
The park around it
SCERA Park is a City of Orem park of about 25 acres, and the city calls it the most diverse park in its system. Beyond the amphitheater and the pool it carries two playgrounds, a nine hole disc golf course, a 1.31 mile walking path, restrooms, a main pavilion seating up to 210 and four smaller pavilions seating around 40 each. It also hosts the Colonial Heritage Festival across three days in early July.
The pool and the park belong to the city, and their calendars are the city's. The SCERA Pool sells a city season pass and opens Monday to Saturday for a summer stretch that usually runs from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day (May 23 to September 7 in 2026). Open plunge starts at noon, weekday lap swim runs from 7 to 9 a.m., and entry is by QR code in the Orem Recreation app. That year the pass ran from $45 for a senior member to $230 for a non-member family. The splash pad beside it runs longer hours across the warm months, alongside the city's other two at Hillcrest and Palisade parks. Daily pool admission is posted by Orem Recreation, not by the theater, so check with the city rather than the box office. The ranked list carries the pool as its own entry.
How the year runs
When to buy, when to sit outside and when to head indoors instead
The rhythm is easy to hold in your head once you separate the two venues. The indoor houses at the Center run all year: films most weeks, plus the stage productions and the arts classes that carry the fall and winter. The outdoor Shell is summer only, roughly June through August, and everything about it that costs money or sells out is decided months earlier. If a Shell summer matters to you, the move is to buy season tickets in April, when they go on sale and the chair punch card is still uncapped, rather than in July when both are gone.
Two nearby events get mixed up with the Shell every year, and neither is run by the SCERA. OremFest lands in early June on the city's civic block at City Center Park, a different park with a different organizer. Through the summer, the green at University Place programs its own free outdoor evenings a few minutes northeast. So a warm month in south Orem can put three separate stages within a short drive, which is worth knowing before you assume they are all the same box office.
Scott Buehler
Moving Utah About Scott
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Read the pageQuick answers
The SCERA, answered
A nonprofit arts organization founded in 1933 that runs two venues in south Orem. The SCERA Center for the Arts at 745 South State opened as a movie house in 1941 and now holds the 733 seat Clarke Grand Theatre, the 450 seat Showhouse II and Gallery 101. The free Orem Heritage Museum has its own building just south of it. The SCERA Shell is an outdoor amphitheater built into a hillside inside SCERA Park, opened in 1984, seating more than four thousand people on grass. One box office handles both venues, and the organization also runs an arts education program through the year.
No. The pool at 699 South State sits inside SCERA Park, a couple hundred yards from the amphitheater, but it is a City of Orem facility run by Orem Recreation. It is sold on city season passes, entered with a QR code in the Orem Recreation app and staffed by the city. The arts organization has no involvement in it. This is the most common mix-up in south Orem, and it costs people a phone call in each direction: the theater box office cannot sell pool admission and the pool desk cannot sell theater seats.
In 2026 a musical on the lawn was posted at $15 for an adult and $10 for a child or senior, and an outdoor film at $5 and $3. Season tickets covering all sixteen events of the season ran at $150 general admission for an adult and $125 for a child aged 3 to 11 or a senior aged 65 and over, with Reserved Section B at $250 and $225 and Reserved Section A at $300 and $275. Prices are reset each spring, so confirm the current year with the SCERA before planning around them.
At the start of April, and they do not stay on sale for long. In 2026 the previous year's season ticket holders could buy from ten in the morning on Wednesday 1 April, and the general public from ten in the morning on Thursday 2 April. Season tickets came off sale on 20 June or when the seating sold out, whichever happened first. The separate chair punch card, which reserves a rented low chair at all three musicals and all seven concerts, was $40 and capped at one hundred cards for the whole season.
The 2026 season carried three musicals, seven concerts and six outdoor films, sixteen events in all. A big-band musical like Guys and Dolls anchors the summer, and the concert list runs into late August. The films are priced as a loss leader at $5 and $3 and are included free with a season ticket. The lineup changes every year, and the SCERA publishes it in the spring, so treat any single year as a sample rather than a fixture.
Yes, and it is free. The Orem Heritage Museum has its own building at 777 South State, just south of the SCERA Center, and has been there since November 2012. It is open weekdays from 3 to 7 p.m. Gallery 101, a working exhibition space, is inside the Center at 745 South State. A free local history museum a short walk from a working 1941 cinema makes an easy indoor afternoon around a film or a show.
Two houses, 733 seats and 450 seats. The Clarke Grand Theatre is the larger of the two and takes the films, the concerts and the main stage productions. Showhouse II at 450 seats takes films and smaller productions. Both sit inside the same building at 745 South State, which opened as a movie house in 1941 and has been showing films at that address ever since. The box office keeps regular weekday and Saturday hours, so check the current times before you go.
Yes, with one rule that catches people every summer. Chairs above a posted height are directed to the back rows, so a full-size camping chair carried from the car can end up costing you the view. The venue rents low chairs at $2 at the gate in limited numbers, and in 2026 it sold a chair punch card at $40, capped at one hundred cards, reserving a rented chair at every musical and concert of the season. Blankets are the simplest answer, and the hillside fills front to back well before curtain.
A good deal more than the amphitheater. SCERA Park is a City of Orem park of about 25 acres fronting State Street at 600 South, and the city describes it as the most diverse park in its system: two playgrounds, a nine hole disc golf course, a 1.31 mile walking path, restrooms, a main pavilion seating up to 210 and four smaller pavilions seating around 40 each, plus the outdoor pool. It also hosts the Colonial Heritage Festival, a three day living history event held in early July.
A ninety year old arts institution, inside a city that stopped growing
The SCERA is one of the clearest reasons people stay in Orem: a nonprofit arts organization older than most of the houses around it, running a full outdoor season and a full indoor one inside a city of under a hundred thousand people. If you are weighing an address here and want to know how close you can realistically live to it, and what that part of south Orem costs, tell me what you are looking at. I connect you with a trusted Utah County agent who walks the streets with you, and I stay on the financing side.
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