Performing and Visual Artists Come Together in New ECSU Arts Center

	Fine Arts Instructional Center at Eastern Connecticut State University

With the start of the spring semester at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, Connecticut, students in the university's theatre, music, and visual arts programs are settling into their new Fine Arts Instructional Center.

A collaboration between Theatre Projects, design architect William Rawn Associates, executive architect The S/L/A/M Collaborative, and acoustician Kirkegaard Associates, the 118,000-sq.-ft. arts center features a 400-seat concert hall, 250-seat courtyard theatre, and a 120-seat studio theatre, as well as support spaces including rehearsal rooms, scene and costume shops, dressing rooms, and a green room.

"Theatre Projects and William Rawn have a long history of successful collaborations," Scott Crossfield, Theatre Projects' theatre designer, said. "We're excited to add ECSU's beautiful new arts center to that list and we look forward to many more."

The $62 million facility gives the university the ability to nurture artists-in-training with versatile facilities tailored to a diverse cross section of specializations. Not only can ECSU now provide an environment catered to comprehensive arts education, they can also boast an elegant building to invite the student body and public inside to experience the work of students and outside performers in professional surroundings.

Designed to accommodate the entire department of performing and visual arts, Theatre Projects and the design team planned the building to allow the diverse group of arts students shared access to the support spaces. Aside from being both a streamlined and cost-effective solution, this approach also supports the university's emphasis on collaboration across artistic disciplines.

The most distinctive venue in the new arts center is the 400-seat concert hall, which will play host to choral and acoustic music, lectures, guest performers, and a myriad of other university events. A grand glass wall stands at the back of the audience, creating a connection to the outside. Warm wood finishes and ample sunlight create a peaceful setting that suits choral, acoustic, and classical music exceptionally well. The walls of the room are lined with a distinctive gold metal acoustic paneling and the acoustic ceiling features a unique, wave-like design. The ceiling required inventive solutions to account for the one-of-a-kind form, so Theatre Projects designed and specified curved lighting trusses and a suspended metal panel system to suit the asymmetrical shape.

The 250-seat courtyard theatre features a full fly tower, technical ledges, lighting and sound booth, two catwalks, and LED stage lighting, providing the university's theatre program the creative freedom to stage ambitious works of drama, musical theatre, and even small operas. As they progress through their learning, ECSU's theatre students are encouraged to experiment with each role a theatre has to offer -- technical director, stage manager, scenic designer, prop master, actor -- all of which the room's versatile systems and robust support spaces make possible.

The theatre department's previous main performance venue was a general-purpose 500-seat auditorium with non-staggered continental seating and a sizable gap between the stage and seats. When designing a room for young actors who might be stepping into the spotlight for the first time, it's essential that the space be unintimidating and appropriately sized so they can fill the room with their voice and presence while also receiving feedback from the audience. Theatre Projects designed this room with a balcony which draws the audience closer to the actors and a forestage extension to allow the performers to come closer toward the audience, giving the actors-in-training a wonderfully intimate space to interact in.

"We take great care in every performance space we create to explore how we can get the connection between audience and performer to be as intimate as possible," David H. Rosenburg, Theatre Projects' project manager, said.

While students can take part in performances and learn the art of stagecraft in the larger courtyard theatre, the arts center's 120-seat studio theatre will serve as a theatre lab where the department and its students can hold classes, rehearse, and stage student-produced works. The room's flexible seating encourages its use as a blank canvas for experimentation -- the perfect complement to the facility's more formal venues.

One of the most progressive benefits of the new arts center is the environmental consideration that went into its design and construction. The facility is one of the first university performing arts centers in the country with all-LED stage and house lighting. LED lighting offers a number of benefits, including less energy consumption, low heat radiation, and reduced maintenance costs.

Theatre Projects has long been a proponent of energy-efficient solutions like LED lighting, advocating for its adoption in performance spaces. The Fine Arts Instructional Center, which is applying for LEED-Silver certification, embodies a new generation of efficient, environmentally responsible buildings through a number of green technologies and features like the increased use of natural lighting, automatic lighting controls, reflective roofing, low-flow plumbing, and efficient HVAC which includes heat-recovery systems.

More than just a stand-out feature of the ECSU campus, the new arts center will benefit the entire community, drawing in audiences to see student and guest performances, gallery shows, and other events. It will also attract greater numbers of arts students to the university, turning those prospective actors, writers, painters, and sculptors into more well-rounded performers, artists, and people. With the resources the center provides, the school can help produce graduates who are better prepared for careers in theatre, music, the visual arts, and for the world at large.

The Fine Arts Instructional Center also includes an art gallery, general purpose classrooms, spacious sun-lit lounge areas, and design studios for printmaking, sculpture, painting, digital arts, and drawing. The new art gallery played host to the building's inaugural event: an exhibit contrasting the works of American impressionist painter J. Alden Weir and photographer T. Harrison Judd, titled "In Place, In Time."