From Peter Pan to pianists, marching bands to master classes, the University's new Center for the Arts has been filled with activity almost from the moment its doors opened for fall semester. Students, faculty, visiting performers and audiences alike have been making ample use of the 92,000-square-foot showcase building, on Orchard Road just south of the Amy e. duPont Music Building. the center's education and performance space includes a 450-seat proscenium theatre, a studio theatre that seats u p to 150, recital and orchestra halls and 32 individual music practice rooms.

Speaking at the dedication of the Center for the Arts on Oct. 20, Howard Cosgrove, charman of the Board of Trustees, said "It is our hope that music, theatre and art will be daily celebrated in this building, and indeed opening events and productions indicate that the building is achieving that goal.

"It is also our hope that what transpires in this facility not only pleases but fascinates and inspires the minds of those who enter here."

“The Center for the Arts is a significant step forward for the music and theatre departments at the University and a wonderful focal point for the surrounding community,” Patrick Donnelly, AS ’93, the center’s director, says.

“Both academic programs now have performance facilities that will enhance their already-strong reputations, and their higher profile will help call attention to cultural life in Newark in general. While this has always been a great place to live and work, more people will now know about it.”

The first public performance in the new building was Sept. 21, when UD faculty accompanist Julie Nishimura and Carol Prodan, both instructors in music, performed a four-hand piano recital in the center’s 200-seat Gore Recital Hall. The audience was able to hear works by Debussy, Schubert and Mozart on the new Steinway concert grand piano that was selected specifically for the hall.

“I have performed in several intimate recital halls around the country, including Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and the [Philadelphia] Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theatre,” Nishimura says. “I have to say that the Gore Recital Hall is right up there with the others as far as both the piano and the acoustics are concerned.”

The Center for the Arts’ proscenium Thompson Theatre was launched with the UD Professional Theatre Training Program’s (PTTP) performance of Peter Pan, which previewed Oct. 13 and was offered in repertory this fall with Cyrano De Bergerac. Directed by Broadway veteran Mark Lamos, with sets by Lee Savage, Peter Pan’s magical story of pirates, fairies, three Darling children and the boy who refuses to grow up showed off many special features of the Thompson Theatre.

The theatre’s 3,100-square-foot stage area vertically extends 70 feet from stage floor to roof, and its fly system allows for quickly placing and removing scenery. In addition, the orchestra pit has a lift capable of raising the pit to stage level when needed.

“PTTP has desperately needed an additional performing space since its inception at UD, and the new theatre in the Center for the Arts can definitely provide that,” Sanford Robbins, chairperson of the Department of Theatre, says.

PTTP student Sarah Dandridge, who played Liza the maid in Peter Pan, calls the Thompson Theatre “an incredible space.”
“This is a real theatre,” she says. “It’s well laid out and so exciting to use. We’re all just thrilled and very fortunate to have this amazing space.”

John Rensenhouse, who’s been acting professionally since graduating from the PTTP in 1981, when the program was located in Milwaukee, played Captain Hook. “I was happy to come here and help inaugurate this gorgeous new theatre,” Rensenhouse says.

Even before the Center for the Arts hosted any public performances, the building was being used and appreciated by students and faculty, particularly in the Department of Music.

The 5,000-square-foot Puglisi Orchestra Hall is designed for multiple uses, including as an indoor rehearsal space for the 300-plus-member UD Marching Band. Among the many performance-enhancing design features of the room are a curved ceiling to help disperse sound, as well as angled walls that direct sound upward, acoustic draperies and the use of heavy materials to absorb sound. The structure rests on a floating neoprene pad and uses acoustic isolating joints to keep the music in the room and to provide an effective barrier to outside noises.

“The Marching Band goes inside during bad weather, as well as when we are learning new music for a new production,” band director Heidi Sarver says. “There are simply no words to describe our room without using the words ‘artistic beauty.’”

Music classes and ensemble groups have met and rehearsed in the new center from the start of the semester, and individual students of instrumental and vocal music have been hard at work in the practice rooms.

Kathryn Lort, AS ’07, a music major and pianist, says she enjoys using the practice rooms and is looking forward to playing in Gore Recital Hall in the future.

“I was very excited when I first saw this building, especially because the practice rooms are really bright and cheerful,” Lort says. “And, I love the recital hall. I haven’t tried out the piano there yet, but I’ve heard it being played, and it sounds great.”

The Center for the Arts cost $48 million, exclusively from private funds, including $10 million from the Unidel Foundation and $500,000 from the UD Alumni Association. In all, more than 1,200 gifts were made by individuals and organizations.

The building is connected by a covered pergola to a 715-vehicle parking deck accessible from Elkton Road and Amstel Avenue. Entry from the parking deck on Elkton Road provides a view of the Hollowell Pergola Garden, a gift of UD senior administrators David E. and Kathleen A. Hollowell. North of the center, a former parking lot has been transformed into a garden, with landscaping inspired by Mentors’ Circle and Magnolia Circle on The Green.

Ayers/Saint/Gross was the center’s architect, and Whiting-Turner was the construction manager. In all aspects of the building’s planning, acoustics were the key, according to Steve Ruble of UD Facilities Planning and Construction, who was project coordinator for the center’s construction.

“Each space has a different design and function,” Ruble says. “The acoustics are the primary consideration, and everything in the building is designed around this need.”