The School of Theatre Building now open
Posted by The Skyliner on March 24th, 2010Kyra Alexander
Staff Writer
“The first thing I was told when I came to North Greenville is that we were going to get a new theatre building,” Karla Neves, senior theatre major, said, “I was so excited, and now during my senior year it’s finally here. I’ve enjoyed this building so far, and I wish I was going to be here to watch it grow.” 
When walking into the School of Theatre Building, the building left of the Art Building, the new Cultural Events office is the first room to be seen.
Down the hall to the left are all of the theatre teachers’ offices. Teachers have their own individual offices designed to fit them.
Near the back of the school is a design lab, a large lecture room for theatre appreciation and theatre history classes and an acting studio, which can also double as a blackbox theatre. The scene shop is located below the lecture room and has been in use since the beginning of the semester.
One of the big advantages of the new building is that the classroom for the theatre students was M-10, located under Turner Chapel. It is a 25 by 20 foot classroom. In the School of Theatre Building there are three classrooms, the smallest of which is larger than M-10.
All of these rooms are fully equipped, and everything is up and running.
The new Billingsley Theatre, located right behind the School of Theatre, is projected to open fall of 2010.
“We are planning to produce our first show of the season in the new theatre,” Christy Bruerer, junior theatre major, explained.
The estimated seating in the new theatre is 300, and it is a transformable space that can be changed into three different settings: an arena setting where the audience surrounds the stage in 360 degrees, also called theatre in the round; a thrust space in which the audience would surround the stage on three sides; or a proscenium setting where the audience is on one side looking in like a picture frame.
The new theater building will also have a prop room, a makeup room and a costume room.
There will also be a box office in the lobby for scanning cards and buying tickets. Students will still get their tickets from the Cultural Events office in the School of Theatre Building, however.
Some new and improved equipment in the new theatre will be a grid, from which lights and speakers can be hung. This gives versatility and virtually unlimited possibilities for lighting and sound.
They will have their own sound system and lighting equipment for the new space. It will be an upgrade from Turner Chapel.
The stage floor will be raised platforms that the designer can move around. The platforms are also easily replaceable, which means the stage floor can be painted and have sets anchored to it.
“The possibilities in our new theatre really excite me for future production and I am very glad the theatre department has a place to call their own,” Andrew Turner, junior theatre, said.
Tags: Spring 2010, Vol. 110 - Issue 8