Three Rivers Music Theatre

Founded 2016

Founding: Three Rivers Music Theatre was founded in 2016 by Andy Planck, a Fort Wayne native (Northrop High School, then Ball State's musical theatre program) who had worked in New York and on national tours, come home in 2009, and spent years building the plan with the Small Business Development Center. One magazine profile dates the founding to 2015; Planck's own account has him deciding in 2015 and taking the space — the Randall Lofts at Pearl and Harrison streets, with studios at 212 Pearl Street — in January 2016, and the company's own history gives 2016. Its stated purpose was to tell "stories that were not being told in our community": contemporary, socially challenging musicals.

Course: The first season opened with The Last Five Years in April 2016 and Hair that July at Purdue Fort Wayne's Williams Theatre; Cabaret, Dogfight, A New Brain and the Tony-winning Fun Home followed. The company later moved to larger quarters at 416 West 4th Street, runs the Triple Threat Performing Arts Academy as its education arm, and in the fall of 2025 marked its tenth anniversary by reviving Hair. Musical matters as such belong to the Music History leg; Three Rivers is carried here as a theatre company.

Sources:

1. Three Rivers Music Theatre, "Our Story" (threeriversmusictheatre.com) — founded 2016 by Andy Planck, mission, production history.
2. Whatzup, "Bringing Back the Love" (2016), "Fun Home" (2019), and "Three Rivers let 'Hair' down for 10th anniversary" (2025) — the Pearl Street start, the first productions, the 4th Street move, the anniversary; Fort Wayne Magazine — the 2015 founding date (variant).