Fayetteville lost one of its biggest theater supporters on Tuesday.

Sarah Burnside, 76, passed away after a two-year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Robert James, a fellow board member of TheatreSquared, the local theater group Burnside help start, summed up the city’s loss.

“ It was definitely a great loss of someone who truly loved theater, ” James said.

Burnside had a wellknown passion for theater, and she had a desire to see a strong theater scene in the Fayetteville area. That desire was rewarded on Oct. 20 when she received the firstever Premier Award from TheatreSquared.

Burnside was born Jan. 26, 1930, in what is now Bibanga, Congo. She grew up there and moved to Georgia and in 1951 earned a Bachelor of Arts from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga. She married Wade W. Burnside of Mountain Home in 1953. They had one daughter, Carole Bustard-Burnside, and twin sons, Kirk McMillan Burnside and Allen McKee Burnside. She ended up in Seattle, where she had her first stint with the arts.

Burnside enrolled in some drama classes at the University of Washington in 1980 to help fill the extra time after her children left the house. Her husband later decided to move the family back to Northwest Arkansas, and Burnside started working on her Master of Fine Arts in drama at the University of Arkansas, which she finished in 1987.

She worked heavily in the arts during that time. In 1978 she was named the vice president of a theater group called the Kaleidoscope Players. She helped the group set up and perform six showings of “ The Diary of Anne Frank. ”

The group disbanded five years later, and Burnside fed her passion by seeing plays in New York City and London.

Burnside became eventually a big player in the drama scene in Fayetteville. She produced the first-ever locally written theater performance at the Walton Arts Center and worked as the president of the Ozark Stage-Works, helping the group go from one performance a year to three performances a year in 1992.

In 2004, Burnside had her first experience with TheatreSquared. James said her vision and dedication helped the organization get off the ground.

“ She introduced TheatreSquared to the board and its directors, and she even personally hosted a fund-raising dinner at her own house to help it out, ” James said.

James said that involvement was one of the reason she got the Premier Award, and her passion was one of the reasons TheatreSquared survived.

“ She was willing to stand up and fight for what she believed in, ” James said. “ It was a great loss of someone who truly loved theater. ”

There will be a memorial service at 2 p. m. Saturday at First United Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville.