Chief Sepass Theatre

Langley has talked for years about building a proper performing arts centre and has not built one. In the meantime the biggest room with a stage and 300 seats is a school theatre on Trattle Street in Fort Langley. If you have been to a youth musical, a dance recital or a touring act in Langley, odds are you have sat in it.

The name

The theatre is named for Chief William Sepass, whose Halkomelem name was K’HHalserten. Born in the 1840s and living until 1943, he led the community now known as Skowkale First Nation, in the Chilliwack area, and spoke for the Stó:lō people, including before a royal commission on land in 1913. He was a canoe-maker, a hunter and an orator, trained from boyhood as a keeper of his family’s and his people’s history. At about seventy he decided those stories should be written down, and between 1911 and 1915 he dictated his songs and creation accounts for translation. They were published decades later as the Sepass Poems, and reissued in 2000 by a Mission press. The Fort Langley theatre is one of the places that carries his name.

The building

The school at 9096 Trattle opened in 1965 as Fort Langley Junior Secondary. In 1986 the school board closed the junior secondary and reopened the building as Langley Fine Arts School, a kindergarten-to-grade-12 school where the senior students major in dance, drama, music or visual art by audition or portfolio. The theatre and extra art rooms were added in 1996, during the renovations that followed. About 900 students attend today.

What plays here

Three kinds of things, roughly:

• School productions. The drama, dance and music programs are the house companies. Their shows are generally announced through the school and its weekly newsletter rather than ticket sites.
• Community companies. The PLAY Society stages its youth musicals here, including SpongeBob The Musical from November 19 to 22, 2026, and lists the school as a partner.
• Rentals. Outside groups can book the room through the school district (see below); their events are usually listed under “Chief Sepass Theatre at the Langley Fine Arts School”.

Our events list carries the public ones we can verify.

Booking it

The district handles rentals of school space centrally under its Administrative Procedure 550. Community groups apply through the online rentals portal linked from the facility rentals page, which also has the current fee schedule and terms as PDFs. The page does not list the theatre separately from other school spaces, so email [email protected] and ask about theatre availability and technical support before you plan. The district warns that access is limited in December, March and June because of school breaks and the schools’ own events.

Two practical notes. The school’s own Chief Sepass Theatre page carries nothing but the address and office contacts, so there is no public seating chart or tech spec online; ask the renter or the school. And because it is a working school, daytime access and parking are different on school days than at a 7pm show.

Nearby

Langley Little Theatre runs the 80-seat Langley Playhouse in Brookswood, Theatre in the Country does dinner theatre on Glover Road in Langley City, and Bard in the Valley plays outdoors every summer. For Fort Langley itself, start with our village guide.

Something out of date? Tell us.