Collegiate Times

Image: 2012-09-26 21:19:59

According to Crone, many larger groups and professional musicians are forced to use Burruss now.

"Burruss was never designed for that. It was designed so that the entire Corps of Cadets could march down those wide aisles and sit and stand and salute. It wasn't designed ever to be a concert hall or a theater," Crone said.

Additionally, the center will be used widely for community events, and not just for the university.

"The whole thing will be transformative for the community, for the department of music, for our music majors and the campus as a whole,” Crone said.

In addition to musical performances, the center will also be used extensively for theater and dance events. Those events could be performances from outside groups, or others within the department of theater.

"We're hopeful to produce work in the main hall, and also in the Cube, which is the collaborative performance lab, the box off to the side which is a four story black box performance space," said Patty Raun, the head of the theater department.

The center will provide what even Theater 101 doesn't. Theater 101, the large glass building on College Avenue and latest theater arts construction, is for student learning through small audiences and experimental theater. The Center for the Arts is designed instead for larger plays and public presentations. Currently, many departments use the Haymarket Theater in Squires.

"For bigger productions that have a need for large space, then we can rent the Center for the Arts," Raun said.

She is also eager to use the center for works that use more technology and projection.

"I'm very excited our students will have a variety of opportunities," Raun said. "They'll have a variety of venues that more closely represent the kind of spaces they will encounter in the world."

While both music and theater departments have had roles in the planning of the center and plan on utilizing it frequently, it is not going to be run by an academic department.

"The academic departments are not housed in the Center for the Arts. So we will be working with the Center for the Arts folks to find appropriate scheduling and rehearsal space for the kinds of dreams that we have about using those spaces," Raun said.

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A version of this article appeared in the Sep 27 issue of the Collegiate Times.