The theater will replace the Black Swan Theater, a converted car dealership that will now be used for new play development and the organization's myriad educational events. OSF's other existing stages include the Agnus Bowmer Theater, opened in 1977, and the outdoor Elizabethan stage where performances have been showing since the mid-1930s.

The new theater project is beginning despite the continuing efforts of two people to stop it. Psychologist Philip Lang and self-employed architect and builder Colin Swales appealed the city planning commission's 8-1 approval of the project to the City Council, and then the City Council's unanimous approval to the state Land Use Board of Appeals, which isn't expected to rule on the case for some six months. Nonetheless, Lang and Swales, who could not immediately be reached for comment, have not attempted to block construction. It would require the posting of a $5,000 bond and a demonstration of the "irreparable harm" they would suffer from its construction.

Their argument is that the design of the building violates a part of Ashland's design code that was crafted to stop big-box retailers like Wal-Mart, not a new theater by OSF, by far the city's largest tourist attraction. That part of the design code prohibits "new buildings or contiguous groups of buildings" larger than 45,000 sf. Lang and Swales argument is that the theater and an adjacent new parking garage total 78,000-sf. The problem with the argument is the two structures aren't connected, albeit only separated by about four feet.