The boxes are piled high; the floors littered with 40-years worth of accumulation. But in a sea of organized chaos, Beaufort County Arts Council Executive Director Joey Toler is keeping his cool as he makes the much-awaited move to the Turnage Theater and a future that holds a regional arts center.

The transition has been seamless as possible, Toler said: the arts council has gotten by with a lot of help from a lot of friends.

“I had three areas that we were going to spread out over three days. We had all the areas moved by noon on the first day because we had so many wonderful volunteers with trucks, vans,” he laughed. “The just lined up and we started loading them down. By 12 o’clock, we had cleared out the baggage room, the boardroom and the gift shop.”

Now what’s left in the old office is just enough to get by for the rest of the week as the theater goes through its final inspections with the city before they can officially move in.

The early 20^th century theater was restored in the early 21^st century, and is undergoing another restoration now with its purchase by the arts council in September, and a plan to restore performing arts to the Turnage stage — one of many plans in store for the arts center.

Toler found the expertise to make that happen in Stuart Lannon, the Turnage’s new technical director and building manager. Lannon knows the Turnage like the back of his hand: former technical director Scotty Henley brought Lannon in to do sound, lighting and rigging for Turnage performances from the start.

“I was here at least twice, three times per month,” Lannon said.

Lannon was such an instrumental behind-the-scenes part of Turnage performances that once Henley took on the job of theater director, he made a proposal to the board to hire Lannon as the tech director.

Several years later, he’s got the job. Visual arts, performing arts, weddings and other events — handling all the technical details will be his starring role at the theater. But with a freelance background that encompasses everything from running sound for a bar band to working 400 feet above the field at the Georgia Dome, Lannon’s cut out for the work.

“That’s the exciting part, we’re not just going to be doing shows. We’re going to try to get on the comedy circuit, art showings, getting ECU’s school of music in to do concerts, Patch Clark doing children’s theater, weddings — pretty much anything we can fit in the doors,” Lannon said. “It’s both exciting and challenging for me because I’ve got to figure out how to do all these things.”

First up, will be a free performance by Glynnis Redmond, a Kennedy Center teaching artist, on Jan 16.

“It’s not a big, grand opening or anything. It’s really going to be a test run — get some people in the theater and see how it all works down here,” Toler said.