John
Haynes often reminds people that Notre Dame went the entire 20th
century without building a theater or similar arts performance
venue.
In what might be called making up for lost time, it's built
five in the 21st century -- all in the same enormous building.
The 150,000-square-foot Marie P. DeBartolo Center for the Performing
Arts opened this fall at the far south end of campus, almost to
Angela Road. It's the first new performance venue on campus since
Washington Hall was completed in 1881.
Haynes, former chief executive officer of the California Center
for the Arts in San Diego County, California, serves as executive
director of the Marie DeBartolo Center and as Judd and Mary Lou
Leighton Director of Performing Arts for the University.
The building's five venues are:
-- The Patricia George Decio Mainstage Theatre. With 350 seats,
it's actually smaller than Washington Hall (560) but has far more
room for curtains and backdrops. As many as 65 can be hung at
stage level or kept up in storage in the five-story-tall "fly
tower" backstage.
-- The Judd and Mary Lou Leighton Concert Hall. An acoustic
marvel with huge panels above the stage and lining the walls that
can be moved at the touch of a button to "tune the room" for different
kinds of performances. It's the biggest space in the building,
with 900 seats. The first guest-artist performance in the Marie
DeBartolo Center was a concert there by the Lincoln Center Jazz
Orchestra with trumpeter Winton Marsalis on September 19.
-- The Regis Philbin Studio Theater. Resembling a dormant holodeck
from Star Trek: The Next Generation, this so-called "black
box" theater has no permanent seats. It's designed for experimental
theater, and multiple audience configurations are possible. A
stage adaptation of Dead Man Walking is scheduled to
be performed there in December.
-- The Michael Browning Family Cinema. The only movie theater
in Indiana certified for George Lucas's THX sound system, it's
likely to become the area's No. 1 art-house theater. The cinema's
200 seats are steeply tiered, stadium-style, and there's a popcorn
stand out in the hall.
-- The Chris & Ann Reyes Organ and Recital Hall. A chapel-like
space with pew seating for 100 and a new million-dollar organ
handcrafted from 400-year-old Douglas fir.
Each venue is built on its own foundation so whatever's going
on in one can't be heard in the others. Six-inch-thick concrete
slabs line the roof to help insulate the building from outside
sounds.
The performing arts center also houses offices for the Department
of Film, Television and Theatre, classrooms, editing studios,
a recording studio, a scene- and prop-construction shop, a sound
stage, a costume shop, a computer-aided design lab, a lighting
lab, musical and theater rehearsal halls and more.
The center is intended to host performances by touring professional
arts groups like classical and jazz ensembles but not pop groups
like U2, which demand larger audiences. It's also where the campus
will go for theater or musical performances by faculty or students.
Washington Hall will be reserved mainly for productions by student
groups like the Pasquerilla East Musical Company.
The building was designed by architects Hardy Hotzman Pfeiffer
Associates, a specialist in performance venues. It cost $63.6
million.
The project originated in 1989 with a pledge of $33 million
from mall magnate and philanthropist Edward J. DeBartolo '32.
The gift was supposed to underwrite construction of both DeBartolo
Hall, which is now the main Arts and Letters college classroom
building, and a performing-arts facility. Over the years the project's
scope widened and costs multiplied, necessitating further fund
raising.
(October 2004)
