Artists aren’t exactly thrilled when asked to exit stage right during a show at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts.

“That means they have to run around the side of the building, or run through the lobby,” Carol Ryan, capital campaign co-chair, said.

WICA, the island-wide performance art center based in Langley, has run out of space. Hallways are crammed with costumes, there are few prop storage areas and administrators work out of a dining room-sized office.

“I will put my laptop on top of a filing drawer and stand,” development director Ashley Leasure said.

But this year, the areas described by staff as “woefully inadequate” will expand.

In the fall of 2007, theater campaigners launched the $2.5 million “Stage Two,” project, for critical facility upgrades.

Construction began in November 2008, and already $1.7 million in cash and pledges has been raised before the public campaign this spring. Much of the funding came from businesses, invested ticket holders, friends of the theater and grant money.

“We’ve had astonishing community support from both ends of the island,” marketing director Jason Dittmer said. “Our audience is growing and so is our volunteer core.”

WICA was built in 1996, at a time where there was no central location for the arts, Dittmer said. It was originally intended as a presenting house and entertainers would come by truck, load in equipment for a performance and leave.

Over the years, WICA also became a producing house and a major Puget Sound arts destination. They’ve included a Family Series, Literary Series, the Whidbey Island Theater Festival, WICA Conservatory and DjangoFest Northwest.

The growing operation resulted in limited and often overbooked space.

The WICA board of directors, staff and community leaders decided the center, particularly the “back of the house,” needed an upgrade.

“We had a choice of closing the center down and building or continuing to operate,” Leasure said. “We had a resounding response from the community to keep it open.”

The facility is being built in phases, to continue WICA’s year-long programming. Key elements of the project include a rehearsal hall that can double as a classroom, a scene shop, a greenroom, expanded dressing rooms, administrative offices, a box office and an enlarged lobby.

“It won’t look boxy,” Dittmer said during a Friday site tour. “The building will give an illusion of several structures grown together.”

Most of the building materials are recycled, and about $100,000 was saved from the conceived budget, contractor Ed Gemkow said.

Dittmer added that “this space is not a luxury, it’s vital.”

“Right now we’ve got this beautiful grand piano and it is the most expensive prop table ever,” he said.

An elevator will provide access to the new enclosed prop storage area in the scene shop. And the expanded dressing rooms will comfortably accommodate 20 artists. A total of 7,200 feet will be added to the space to make an architectural “campus.”

Dittmer said that by June, construction crews hope to have the building structures enclosed and weather tight.

WICA will launch an island-wide media blitz in May to gain public support and donations for the new center. The campaign will be in tandem with WICA’s “Rural Characters” concert, a Whidbey-based band.