Panida selects Heather White as new executive director

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

The Panida Theater will welcome a new executive director when Heather White officially fills the leadership role, effective Saturday, Nov. 1. 

Hailing from the Burien, Wash. community southwest of Seattle, White brings experience in financial planning and analysis, having worked with multi-million-dollar budgets at Boeing and OpSec Security. She also has an artistic background, with a bachelor’s of arts degree in music — emphasizing piano — from the University of Puget Sound. White ran her own full-time piano studio in the Seattle area, and after moving to Sandpoint with her husband and son in 2020, taught piano at the Music Conservatory of Sandpoint.

“That’s really what we were looking for as a board — what we were looking for in the executive director,” Panida Board President Sean Behm told the Reader in an interview. “It’s pretty amazing that she materialized: somebody that had the business background we needed, but also had an artistic side, as well.”

Drawing on her corporate background, White said she’ll first be focused on the administrative side of the theater’s operations, then reaching out to get to know patrons and fellow cultural and business institutions.

“For me, personally, this is going to be a great opportunity to get my arms open to the entire community,” she said. “I’m looking forward to doing some collaboration — I know that there’s a lot of businesses that have come into town, and I think that there’s an opportunity to really get to know and collaborate with those businesses.”

As far as programming, White said she’s interested in exploring musical theater at the Panida while continuing to host film screenings, and also aims to connect with other regional theaters of the same vintage.

“It’d be really fun, I think, and informative to forge some relationships there and really see what their best practices [are] and what they’re doing and see if we could collaborate with our programming,” she said.

White’s new role comes amid a season of change at the Panida, following the resignation of Executive Director Robb Talbott in August and as the theater nears its 100th anniversary in 2027 while embarking on a series of large-scale improvements and renovations that have required heavy fundraising.

Behm said the Panida is currently in the process of pricing for work on the women’s bathroom, and the upcoming fundraising letter to patrons will focus on raising money for a project to fix delamination on the exterior south wall. That, in turn, will clear the way for seeking a grant to pursue interior restoration — similar to the recently completed restoration-cleaning project on the north interior wall.

Budgeting has been approved for drawings to work on what theater managers call “Phase 2,” Behm said, which includes expanding and connecting the Little Theater and the main theater’s lobby.

“One of the things that I liked with Heather is I feel like she’s somebody that likes to get things done and move forward, and I feel like we have a really great opportunity with the board and with Heather. And if we get the right patrons and the right donors on board to be able to complete the big vision to turn the Panida and the Little Theater into a complete entertainment venue.”

Following that, White said, “It’s time to put an actual operational game behind that and turn [the theater] into what it truly can be.”

Though with an emphasis on looking forward at the theater, White also said she’s committed to maintaining the Panida’s function as the “community’s living room” — as it’s often been described — including bringing together community members of all ages and backgrounds, both in the audience and on the stage.

“I don’t think there’s anything else that prepares you for life quite like it, right?” she said. “To have that sort of an opportunity for these kids [to perform] and whether that be an instrument or whether that be theater or dance. You do that hard work, and you get out there and you put yourself in front of a community.”

As White settles into her new job, patrons are invited to get to know her — including at a community meeting Thursday, Nov. 6.

“That’s probably one of the more exciting things that I’m looking forward to is really getting to know everybody,” she said. “That was one of the things that I loved most about running my piano studio in Burien, was my connection with the community. I could go to the grocery store, and I knew half the people in the aisles. …

“The other thing that I’ve learned about being here for the last five years is the sense of pride that people have with Sandpoint and all that it has to offer,” she added, “and I’d like to be part of that — really making the Panida Theater a part of that pride as well.”