TIGER TV ONLINE REPORTER
In 2005, construction began on the Music and Dramatic Arts building. Four and half years and $22 million later, the building is finally completed.
The Music and Dramatic Arts building celebrated its reopening Sunday with a ribbon cutting ceremony in the newly renovated Shaver theatre.
“It was a huge project,” said Michael Bellinger, assistant to the dean of music. “It wasn’t as simple as just updating a few physical characteristics. Nearly every physical characteristic needed to be updated.”
Bellinger said they started by gutting the entire building, removing all of its floors, electrical wires and 90 percent of the interior walls. Then they began to rebuild, turning two of the courtyards into added classroom space, creating around 20 percent more space.
“All of the new spaces are state of the art which enhances the ability of the students to practice and perform,” Bellinger said.
Bellinger said the new classrooms are all smart classrooms meaning they have the latest in technology to enhance the learning experience of the students and the teaching ability for faculty. The rooms are also all acoustically treated to make them sound proof.
While renovating the building, they made sure to pay attention to maintaining and renewing the original art deco characteristics that were seen in the original building’s lobby.
The project was completely state funded and not affected by budget cuts. According to Michael Tick, chair of the theatre department, funding was allocated in such a way that they received everything they wanted for the building.
“The citizens of Louisiana received a facility used their dollars wisely,” Tick said. “Sometimes it seems that these state projects use money needlessly but that was not the case with this building.”
The project took close to five years due to the enormous amount of work that had to be done but it also took quite awhile for construction to finally get under way because of Hurricane Katrina. The start of construction began right before the hurricane and Tick said it took awhile for construction to get restarted.
“It was hard to come by building materials and labor after Katrina,” Tick said. “Because of the scarcity of materials the building sat for about six months before construction started in earnest.”
During the construction students had to make due by moving into Hatcher hall. Hatcher hall, which was once a dormatory, was renovated into temporary classrooms and a small theatre for all of the theatre students and half of the music students. The other half of music students stayed in the old music building. Bellinger said the cafeteria was converted into a small theatre room and the second, third and fourth floor of dorm rooms were made into classrooms.
“There was no sound proofing in the rooms so it was very noisy,” Bellinger said. “But the students kept a good attitude, gritted their teeth and grinned and bared it because they knew they were going to be moving into a much nicer building.”
Both Bellinger and Tick agree that having beautiful, renovated facilities is important to the flagship agenda.
“This building makes our facility one of the best in the country now,” Bellinger said. “It’s a top tier building for a top tier school.”
Tick said having nice buildings plays a key role in recruiting students and faculty.
“The only way to continue to attract outstanding students is to have state of the art training and performing facilities,” Tick said. “At the center of the flagship agenda is maintaining an outstanding student body.”
To celebrate the opening of the new building, the theatre kicked off with its first production of the year “The Royal Family,” directed by Emeritus John Dennis. The show opened Friday night. The play is showing every night this week at 7:30 and Sunday at 2:30 in the Shaver theatre.
