Sunday, November 15, 2009
A theater rises between town and campus
Christian Trejbal
Recent columns
- Montgomery schools' $6.2 million deficit
- This column does not compute
- Make political parties pay for their primaries
- Tough times ahead for schools
From the RoundTable blog
Virginia Tech is a science and engineering school. It is an agricultural school. It is where the commonwealth's young people go to learn about physics, drafting and cows. If they want to learn about philosophy, literature or the arts, they should head to William & Mary or the University of Virginia. Tech is all about labs and experiments.
That is the myth.
The truth is that Tech loves its laboratories, but not all labs are for science.
Enter Theatre 101 and the renovated Henderson Hall, which celebrated their grand opening a couple of weeks ago. In them, students and faculty in the Department of Theater Arts and Cinema work magic.
Theatre 101, the beautiful glass edifice on College Avenue, is as much a laboratory as any science lab. It contains a black-box theater -- a smaller, intimate performance space that can be configured in many different ways. Seating might be on risers, on stage level or non-existent. Windows might open views onto Henderson Lawn; curtains might shroud the space in darkness. It all depends on the needs of the show.
Students can also experiment with state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems. All theater students cross-train. Actors must learn the technical side of the business; costume designers must dabble in acting.
Theatre 101 is also the campus' first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design -- commonly called LEED -- certified building, a standout beacon for Tech's push for greater environmental sustainability.
Meanwhile, Henderson Hall is the sort of facility to make any student or academic drool. It's modern, clean, bright and full of technology that facilitates learning, teaching and exploring.
During the grand opening, sophomores Katelyn Russell and Matt Banfield showed us around. Their pride was plain as we explored the costume-design lab, music rooms, lighting studios and stage-design lab, complete with computerized tools.
A school does not spend $7.8 million on this sort of facility for a second-rate program. Tech's theater department now has the tools to attract the best and brightest.
If Tech ever was primarily an engineering school, those days are long past. Today it embraces the arts, and the entire community is richer for it. It plays an essential part as the area around College Avenue and Henderson Lawn becomes Southwest Virginia's nexus for performing arts.
Theatre 101 looks outward. The accordion glass doors can open wide to create a performance space that fronts onto College Avenue. Tech is also building an amphitheater and stage area that backs onto the black-box theater. Shows will be able to spill outside for everyone by next summer.
Patricia Raun, head of the theater department, remarked on this role during her speech marking the opening. "Theatre 101's placement on the seam between Blacksburg and Virginia Tech allows us access to the most important ingredient in our teaching and research -- the theater is not complete without the community," she said.
It joins the Lyric Theatre and the Community Arts Information Office on College Avenue. Count Squires Student Center in the performing arts mix, too. It hosts the big theater productions now.
There is more to come, too. Tech has plans to build a larger performing arts center at the entrance to campus, across Henderson Lawn.
And the Blacksburg Town Council last week created a downtown tourism district that includes tax incentives for the arts.
Soon, perhaps, when people think of Tech and Blacksburg, the first thing that comes to mind -- all right, the second -- will be the arts.
