Donegal High School is just one of several Lancaster County high schools that have renovated, rebuilt or upgraded their performing arts spaces and auditoriums over the past 20 years or so.

High school officials and performing arts directors say these upgrades have allowed the schools to stage more technically challenging theater events, include more students in music, dance and drama, accommodate larger audiences at performances, improve access for those with disabilities, and, in some cases, rent their facilities to outside groups.

Before Lancaster Mennonite High School built its 1,000-plus-seat Weaver Auditorium in 1990, the school's fall play was presented in the gym and its music performances in the chapel, Superintendent J. Richard Thomas said.

Soon, the school had the space to start offering an additional theater class, winter play and spring musical, "which has become a very important part of our school year," Thomas said.

The auditorium, located in the school's Calvin and Janet High Fine Arts Center, is used as a school chapel every day and is often rented to outside performance groups, such as ballet troupes.

Hempfield High School turned its old 900-seat Hackman Auditorium into a 1,300-seat Performing Arts Center in 1995, public relations director Jessie Long said. It can now accommodate half the student body at any given program.

"We sort of did set the pace in the county for renovations," said Supervisor of Music Education Alan Mudrick. The center's acoustics, lighting and audience visibility are superior to those in the old venue.

"We already had a strong arts program before we embarked on that addition," Long said, but "we were severely limited by the small auditorium and the small stage."

"It has expanded the program, certainly, because we can do more on stage," Mudrick said, and have more students involved in the annual fall play, musical and Dance Theatre performances.

Technically sophisticated presentations of shows such as "Carmina Burana" and "Cats" were only possible because of the renovations, Mudrick said.

Though Manheim Township's auditorium lost about 200 seats when it was renovated in late 2008, it gained new lighting and counterweight fly systems on stage, an orchestra pit, wheelchair accessibility and a place to hold middle-school concerts, Mark Wagner said.

Wagner, who co-directs Manheim Township Performing Arts with his wife, Beth, said the auditorium's 1,000 seats were reconfigured into a semi-circle that added a center aisle and room for wheelchairs.

"All the seats feel like they're facing more toward the stage," Wagner said.

"The upgrades made it possible to use the auditorium more efficiently," he said. "The old band room was converted into a space where we could build sets," so as not to monopolize the stage when it's needed for other things.

The school wouldn't have been able to present a technically challenging show like 2009's "Peter Pan" before the upgrades, Wagner said.

Lampeter-Strasburg High School completed renovations in 2005 that added a new Performing Arts Center to its school.

The old L-S auditorium had less than 500 seats; the arts center has 1,400, said school spokeswoman Kristle Evans.

"Our goal was to have a center that would be used by [performing-arts] groups throughout the district — not just the high school," Evans said.

"And we've had more community events that use the facility than before."

The added seating capacity makes it easier to bring the school's commencement ceremony indoors, if necessary.

Not every high school hankers for much-larger venues.

Steven D. Lisk, head of school for Lancaster Country Day School, said the school's 275-seat Steinman Theatre "is so frequently and well used that our students, whatever grade level they may attend at our school … know that space."

"When alumni come back to visit, that is one of the spaces that they always gravitate toward," Lisk said.

The theater, used for everything from music to drama to assemblies, "is central — literally in the middle of our structure — so it is at the heart of our school in many ways. But it's also central to our programming," he said.

While the theater hasn't been expanded since it was created from a converted gym in 1972, its lighting and sound systems were upgraded two years ago.

"We know that there is such nostalgia for the intimate feel of that space that I cannot imagine us at this institution wanting to see that lost, ever," Lisk said.

"At the end of the day, our space is relatively modest, but it is a critical and beloved part of our school. No question."