James Madison University Unveils Forbes Center for the Performing Arts

The Forbes Center for the Performing Arts at James Madison University celebrates its gala opening this weekend Friday, February 18 through Sunday, February 20. The new center combines five distinct performance spaces under one roof to accommodate both the University's School of Music and School of Theatre and Dance. Theatre Projects collaborated with Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company and Performance Architecture on the design of this 183,000 square foot, multi-level building. The center houses both the Dorothy Thomasson Etes Center for Theatre and Dance and the Shirley Hanson Roberts Center for Music Performance.

The Dorothy Thomasson Estes Center for Theatre and Dance
The Dorothy Thomasson Estes Center for Theatre and Dance, designed by Hanbury Evans and Theatre Projects, features a 450-seat proscenium theatre, a 200-seat dance theatre, and a 150-seat Studio Theatre. To give students the flexibility to mount a wide array of productions, Theatre Projects designed a flexible proscenium theatre with a modified thrust stage, allowing productions to extend into the seating area. Since the stage can include the area in front of the proscenium, Theatre Projects needed to develop creative solutions to accommodate lighting and scenery positions over the stage apron while at the same time creating a way for students to get to the top safely, always a priority in university design.

The solution was to use a tension-wire grid with a radius-edge downstage and a saw-tooth edge upstage. The radius allows the tension grid to follow the theatrical lighting catwalk to prevent dangerous gaps in the walking surface. The upstage edge has a saw-tooth design to address the users' request to be able to fly a chandelier (for example) out and hang lighting in the gap between the proscenium wall, and the tension grid's edge. This gap was filled with two motorized linesets that allow for the quick hanging and rigging of theatrical electric battens. This created both a safe walkway to allow access to the lights and rigging as well as a way to accommodate special, technical requests. "The theatre department wanted to be able to rig spotline loads over the apron," said David H. Rosenburg, project director for Theatre Projects. "It was a huge challenge to create something so unique, but we used the saw-tooth edge to make it work."

The Studio Theatre is an extremely flexible space that can be configured in proscenium, end stage, thrust, arena, and flat floor arrangements. The dance theatre easily transforms from rehearsal studio to performance space in about a half hour by deploying motorized telescopic seating units.
The Shirley Hanson Roberts Center for Music Performance
The Shirley Hanson Roberts Center for Music Performance features a 600-seat concert hall and a 200-seat recital hall. The concert hall side of the center offered challenges of its own. The concert hall, designed by Theater Projects and Performance Architecture in partnership with Hanbury Evans, required acoustic and staging flexibility to accommodate music ranging from large orchestras to smaller folk or pop concerts. Adjustable acoustic fabric panels were strategically placed overhead, out of audience sight lines and a piano lift was situated downstage to allow musicians to be below the stage for more informal concerts.

While the Forbes Center boasts two distinct centers - one for music and one for theatre and dance, a shared lobby connects and complements the center. Office, studio, support and rehearsal spaces round out the arts center.

The center opened for classes this past September and the staff and students have already begun explore the vast possibilities of the performance spaces. "The paint was barely dry before the students were mounting their first performance," said Rosenburg. "It was an ambitious production of Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphosis, in which they made good use of all the high-tech features. It was a huge success, for the students and the theatre."

The Forbes Center Gala concert starring Denyce Graves takes place on Friday, February 18 at 8:00 pm and on Saturday, February 19 the 3 pm performance of Kiss Me Kate is followed by the Gala Dinner at 6:30 pm.