PAWTUCKET - A conflict has arisen between Rhode Island's oldest community theater and one of the state's newest arts schools.

After simmering below the surface for months, problems between students at the Jacqueline M. Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts and The Community Players hit center stage this month when a student from the school complained that there is not enough stage time for everyone. Arnold Barbeiro, a theater student at Jackie Walsh School and student columnist for The Valley Breeze, is claiming the auditorium at the Jenks/JMW Complex for the Performing and Visual Arts on Division Street does not provide the level of access he and his fellow theater students should have.

In a Jan. 10 Breeze column, Barbeiro described a scenario on Jan. 6 in which junior and senior theater students who were demonstrating scene work as part of a school project "were required to adapt to a giant, immovable set on the stage" for a performance of "The Sugar Bean Sisters," further spending the class "adjusting their blocking to compensate for the awkward setup."

"The set was placed on the stage by the Community Players, who were able to renew their lease on the auditorium just before JMW moved into the building," said Barbeiro. "Now there are outcries over the fact that an arts school does not have a proper performance space."

Barbeiro explained to The Breeze this week that, while everyone involved in organizing stage time at the Jenks/JMW auditorium is doing their best, it is simply not a situation that's working well.

"They're doing what they can," he said. "I'm not trying to blame them for this whatsoever."

Barbeiro said other students and theater teachers are in agreement that "it is high time that we do something because we don't have an adequate space for a performance school," but that doesn't appear likely because the Community Players signed a five-year extension for the space.

Theater teacher Karen Carpenter this week deferred any comment to Jackie Walsh Principal John Haidemenos. Other students that Barbeiro said agreed with him on the stage matter did not return calls this week.

Haidemenos did confirm for The Breeze that there were problems involved with coordinating with the Community Players last year, but those issues have since been rectified with a schedule that seems to work for everyone.

Haidemenos said that members of the theater group have done everything from rearranging the times of their performances to agreeing to allow students from the school to use the group's expensive lighting system so they don't have to buy one of their own. Part of that agreement means training students for free on how to use the system, said Haidemenos.

"They've tried really hard to coexist," he said. "I'm not sure if from the students' perspective they understand what's going on behind the scenes with some of this."

The marriage between the Jackie Walsh School and the Community Players was first forged in the summer of 2010, shortly after the Pawtucket School Committee voted to move the school out of the Pawtucket Armory and into the under-utilized Jenks Junior High School as a cost-saving measure.

Commended by Supt. Deborah Cylke as a "wise and visionary" decision by the School Committee at the time, the move to create the Jenks/JMW Complex for the Performing and Visual Arts did put a strain on an auditorium that was already used year-round by the Community Players and during the school year by Jenks students.

One stage is now shared by Jenks, JMW and the Community Players, a crowded situation that has created plenty of stress when planning practice and performance schedules, according to Barbeiro.

Haidemenos and Community Players President Daniel Fisher agreed with Barbeiro in one aspect, that the Community Players have bent over backwards to work with the public arts school, but they sharply disagreed with the senior student that the arrangement isn't working.

The Community Players have not only allowed JMW students and staff to move any mobile items away from the stage when they need to use the space, but have reduced the number of shows they're doing this year, encouraged JMW students to audition for parts, and offered free access to performances, among other efforts, said Haidemenos.

The JMW principal said that representatives for the school held a lengthy meeting at the end of the 2010-2011 school year to "express some of the concerns" with the way the new arrangement had worked during its first year,

"You had an arts school coming into a building where a community theater is leasing the most critical part of a performing school, which is the auditorium," said Haidemenos.

But since last year's meeting, said Haidemenos, the arrangement with the Community Players has worked much more smoothly.

Fisher told The Breeze this week that many of the students he has interacted with have been very positive about the relationship with the theater group.

"I think we have a good relationship," he said. "This has been a great opportunity for these students to work with us, as well as us to work with them."

Fisher said the Community Players "have tried to be flexible in our scheduling" to accommodate the JMW students, moving a November production to October and shifting a June production to July so as not to conflict with graduation. He also believes the Jan. 6 issue referenced by Barbeiro was an "isolated incident."

"We're trying to be as accommodating as possible," he said. "I think they have been reciprocating."

The Community Players, said Fisher, remain "a great asset to the school, to the town, and I hope and I think that we are going to be able to work together."

First founded in 1921, the Community Players moved into the upper floor of the Slater Park boathouse in 1968. In 1980, vandals set fire to that historic building, which destroyed the interior and most of the contents.

The Pawtucket Congregational Church and St. Martin's Church loaned their auditoriums and, for one production, the Players found themselves back at the new Jenks Junior High.

The initial collaboration extended into months of working with school and city officials to convert the Jenks auditorium into a working theater. In 1982, the Community Players moved into Jenks auditorium for good.