Moss Arts Center Gives Virginia Tech Unprecedented Ability to Showcase, Nurture Artists

	The Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech University. Photo: Virginia Tech

In 2005, when Virginia Tech launched the Virginia Tech Arts initiative -- a university-wide effort to "expand creative practice and support interdisciplinary learning, and engagement through the arts," the university -- already rich in its commitment to the arts -- reaffirmed its dedication to nurturing, showcasing, and incorporating the arts into cross-disciplinary fields.

Now, with the November 1 grand opening of the Moss Arts Center -- designed by Snøhetta Architects in collaboration with Theatre Projects and STV Incorporated -- Virginia Tech has unveiled a facility capable of meeting all of the school's artistic needs and in doing so, cemented its position as a premier destination and proving ground for students, patrons, and practitioners of the theatrical, musical, and visual arts.

After more than four years of labor and 10 years planning, Virginia Tech cut the ribbon earlier this month on the $100-million arts center -- a 147,000-sq.-ft. facility featuring a 1,300-seat, multipurpose auditorium; a multimedia development studio; several art galleries totaling 4,200-sq.-ft. of gallery space for traditional, digital, and new media exhibits; a TV studio; administrative offices; and the Collaborative Performance Lab -- a modified black box theatre, known as "The Cube."

"The scope and scale of the work we now can bring to campus is unprecedented in this region," said Ruth Waalkes, the university's associate provost for the arts and executive director of the Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech.

Theatre Projects helped design the center, which was in part a renovation of Shultz Hall -- a former campus dining facility, now transformed into the backstage area of the 1,300-seat theatre. From designing an innovative visual and interactive arts lab to coordinating lighting positions and rigging points through the theatre's complex ceiling, Theatre Projects found creative solutions to reconcile the school's vision for a state-of-the-art, multi-venue arts center with the practical hurdles of theatre design, planning, and construction.

The centerpiece of the new facility, the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre, was created in large part thanks to the direction of Theatre Projects, who recognized the school's need for a flexible, multipurpose facility capable of accommodating a wide variety of genres and events, from dance troupes, to rock concerts, symphonies, drama, and more. With two orchestra lifts that can be used to create two different size orchestra pits or as a flexible forestage area -- extending performers beyond the proscenium, a 100' tall fly tower, 80 line sets, an adjustable acoustic system, and an adjustable proscenium, the theatre provides an intimate setting with the flexibility to host nearly any type of performance. With 10 dressing rooms, administrative offices, a wardrobe area, a greenroom, restrooms, and audio and lighting storage workrooms, the theatre provides the necessary framework for the university to accommodate productions of any size.

The 5,000-sq.-ft. stage in the performance hall -- now the largest stage on campus -- is just one of the attributes that makes the theatre perfectly suited for student and guest performances of theatre, dance, music, and even opera. Previously, the campus offered only three performance venues: The Squires Recital Salon -- too small for large groups, The Haymarket Theatre -- which has only 485 seats, and Burruss Hall -- a venue too large for dramatic performances and lacking sufficient acoustics. Now, with the center's grand opening, performers will find a versatile and intimate venue, perfectly suited for performances of any genre, scope, or size.

With the safety of students in mind, Theatre Projects collaborated with the campus OSHA administration to create a venue where the performers, stagehands, and the audience are able to securely practice and participate in the arts. The theatre's unique safety features include LED-lit safe edges on both the stage and both orchestra lifts, which let the performers easily see the stage edge, and a propcatcher, to prevent props from falling into the orchestra pit.

With their announced performance schedule, the school has already demonstrated a few of the ways they plan to utilize the theatre's versatility and intimacy. In its opening months, the theatre will host the high-energy Diavolo Dance Theatre; the Ballet Hispanico; an intimate talk with Ira Glass of NPR's This American Life; the music of eighth blackbird; and a musical celebration of Appalachian heritage at the Crooked Road Festival.

Perhaps the most innovative feature of the new center, "The Cube" is essentially a robust black box theatre featuring a large performance, rehearsal, and audience space surrounded on all sides by technical galleries. The key to the highly adaptable room is the infrastructure, which Theatre Projects designed in order to allow the university to bring in any element and equipment imaginable. "The Cube" features chain motors, theatrical draperies, and, instead of a pipe grid -- typical of black box theatres -- the venue features a 32' tall gridiron, capable of rigging lighting, scenery, props, and video and audio equipment in infinite combinations.

"The Cube" will be home to the school's newly formed Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology -- a research institute with the mission of "forging a pathway between research and art, educational innovation, and scientific and commercial discovery." In order to give the institute an environment for exploring the intersection of the arts, design, engineering, and science, Theatre Projects created an arts laboratory capable of meeting the physical and technological needs of the trailblazing institute. "We gave them a blank canvas with infinite possibilities," Scott Crossfield, Theatre Projects' theatre designer said. "It's a living, breathing art gallery."

"The Cube," which David Rosenburg, Theatre Projects' project manager on the center called "an erector set," has already shown some of its potential with two innovative visual and interactive art exhibits: This Edge I Have to Jump -- a video installation which surrounds viewers with image, sound, and narrative fragments; and a Halloween "Tech-or-Treat" event, where families were invited to walk through a labyrinth of hanging interactive light and sound components as an autonomous interactive robotic ghost -- the "Cable Suspended Performance and Entertainment Robot" (CaSPER) -- hovers above them.

Named in honor of local artist Patricia Buckley Moss, the center will provide Virginia Tech with an unprecedented foothold into the local, regional, and national arts community.

University President Charles Steger said of the importance of the Moss Arts Center, which received the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold certification: "The arts play an essential role in our mission because the role of the university goes far beyond preparing our students just for work. We want to prepare them for life. Great institutions help their students learn to solve problems, but also how to see problems, to feel and to think and to develop perspectives that will allow them to thrive in today's multicultural society."

On November 1, The Philip Glass Ensemble gave the inaugural performance in the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre and the center's other facilities have already begun hosting traditional and interactive art exhibits.

With so many versatile facilities and the backing of a university committed to a campus-wide expansion and integration of the arts, the Moss Arts Center is poised to become a haven for showcasing and developing groundbreaking works, and its impact and influence will likely be felt throughout Virginia, the East Coast, and perhaps the entire country.