Upon entering the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at Maryland, it's easy for the visitor to be impressed by the scale of the architectural structure alone. After all, the new center includes six performance venues plus a performing arts library, all within 10 interlocking buildings spread across 17 acres. Dazzling, indeed.
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The 1,100-seat Concert Hall is one of several performance spaces wired with fiber-optic audio recording equipment. |
But just as the quality of an architectural structure is the result of "good bones," spaces that are designed for performance are enhanced by what is not seen--technology that enriches the experience for the student, performer and audience.
From the 100-seat laboratory theater to the 1,100-seat Concert Hall, all of the performance spaces are wired to a fiber-optic network that connects them to a recording studio. When the network is fully operational, those who were not in the audience for a particular performance will be able to request a digital recording of it in the performing arts library. Each carrel is equipped with headphones to listen to performances by both visiting artists and students alike.
"When you go to many theaters or concert halls, the audience hears a 'whoosh' sound from the HVAC system." says Brian Jose, the center's director of marketing and communications. "Either you get that rush of air or you get silence." Not so at this high-performance center. Gravity-fed air handlers in the ceiling drop hot or cold air, as the ambient temperature requires. The floors are hollow, and a reverse chimney flue sucks the air out silently, explains Jose. "It's imperceptible to the audience."
The Department of Dance, the first to move into the new center, may have made the most remarkable transition. Its former home--World War II-era trailers--were at long last abolished. Alcine Wiltz, department chair, says the students who entered in fall 2000 were able to enjoy the new center from the start of their academic career.
The Dance Theatre is designed to function as a studio by day and a theater by night, thanks to telescoping, electronically controlled seating for 180 people. Electronic shades can also cover the skylights and a speaker system stays nestled in the wall until needed. "Those aspects are just wonderful; possibilities that we never had before," says Wiltz.
Already Wiltz has seen innovative uses of the technology in the form of a collaborative work between a graduate student in dance, Stephanie Thiebault, and a computer artist/composer to create the performance piece "Strand."
In January, colleagues and students in the Department of Theatre and the School of Music took up residence. Lighting designer Dan Wagner says he is grateful for the state-of-the-art systems in the new center, but is equally enthusiastic about the acoustical capabilities. "You can tune the theater to the event," says Wagner, who notes that unlike lighting, sound is much more dependent upon the type of performance. Acoustical panels in the Concert Hall, Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Recital Hall and the Ina and Jack Kay Theatre allow for adjustments. In the Concert Hall, "You can tune the room for a single vocalist, a single violinist, a pianist, a full orchestra, a full orchestra with a chorus," says Wagner. Kierkegard Associates--internationally known acoustics experts--served as consultants to the center.
How important is it to have the latest bells and whistles? Wagner thinks the delay in gaining access to state-of-the-art technology isn't necessarily a bad thing. He notes that a number of graduate programs in the '80s allowed new technology to drive their programs.
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Students in music, dance and theatre will share perfomance space but retain their individual classroom spaces within the 17-acre complex. |
Tawes Fine Arts Building, the university's former performing arts venue, didn't have the space to take advantage of such technology. "We didn't have a CAD [computer-aided design] lab in the building; we didn't have a lighting lab upstairs, which is essentially a miniature theater where I teach lighting and the students can experiment before they get into the theater," says Wagner. "The great advantage of having that technology in an academic setting is that the students get hands-on experience with ... the latest technology so they're extremely well-prepared when they leave here, both on the undergraduate and graduate level."
"We worked very hard here--and I did in the lighting area--to make sure there was a range of technology so that it wasn't just simply the most elaborate equipment we could get in every space," he adds. While the CAD lab is a valuable tool for set, lighting and costume design, students still build models of sets. "One of the ways we hope to make even more of a national name for ourselves is through the blending of technology and academic programs," Wagner adds.
In all three departments--dance, theatre and music--applications for admission are up in both quality and quantity, a fact Wagner attributes to the new center. "A program is a lot more than a building, but if a building can attract people here and show them the potential ... in that sense we can compete at the absolute top of the national level."
Ultimately, the programs will be judged on their ability to deliver the heart of the center's mission: to combine academic production with professionally presented events in a way that reinforces a relationship between the two as opposed to a competition between the two. --DB
Music Man Comes to Maryland
While in College Park for the fall Homecoming festivities, be sure to visit the new 318,000-square-foot Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, across from Byrd Stadium, to seeMusic Man, produced by the departments of Dance and Theatre and the School of Music.
Meredith Wilson's Music Man will star Johnny Holliday, known to Maryland sports fans as the "Voice of the Terps,"
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The University of Maryland Marching Band will play in this fall's Homecoming
production of Music Man. |
as the lead character, says director Franklin Hildy, chair of the Department of Theatre.
"[Holliday] is very well known in the athletic circle," Hildy says. "This is a part of our outreach to other areas of the university that we don't normally reach."
Holliday, an award-winning actor, has starred in other productions of the Music Man and has held leading roles in performances such as 42nd Street, Bye Bye Birdie, Carnival and Me and My Girl, for which he was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for best actor in a musical.
Holliday says he suggested that the university produce Music Man because there are a lot of characters and because "it's an all-American show that everyone enjoys."
Set in 1912, Music Man is the story of Harold Hill, a traveling con man posing as a salesman who convinces the small town of River City, Iowa, to adopt his revolutionary music program to restore the morale of the town's youth. Hill sells local parents instruments and expensive uniforms so their children can form the River City Boys Band.
The production is part of the Maryland Alumni Association's Alumni College Series and will be one of the premier performing arts events surrounding Homecoming, featuring the university's marching band as the River City Boys Band.
Nick Alcott, the award-winning playwright, actor and director whose productions have appeared at the Arena Stage, the Kennedy Center and Round House Theatre in Washington, D.C., will direct the show. Alcine Wiltz, chair of the Department of Dance, is choreographing the musical, and the theatre department faculty is currently designing the set.
"It's going to be a very complicated show with a lot of changing scenery," says Hildy. "It's the only Prince George's County production where all of the set designers have won Helen Hayes Awards. Those designers include Helen Huang, Dan Wagner and Dan Conway, all faculty members in the Department of Theatre.
Music Man, which was revived on Broadway in April 2000, originally opened Dec. 19, 1957. The musical won eight Tony Awards, including "Best Musical," and ran for 173 weeks and 1,376 performances.
Besides Holliday, the cast of Music Man is composed of student actors and children who live in Prince George's County. "The whole idea of this building, [the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center], was to integrate the departments of Theatre and Dance, the school of Music, and the people of Prince George's County," says Hildy. "This is an attempt to show what this building can do for the entire community." --KP
