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Page 25 text:
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VUT AND NE ELY Since 1947 the future of the University Theater program has been dominated by one factor: the absence of a permanent home. In that year the present wooden frame structure was built of government surplus materials on grounds designated for medical expansion. It was considered a temporary makeshift at the time and a tacit promise of a new and permanent theater was made. Now, 27 years later, the VUT is still in that ramshackle building across the street from the hospital. But the pinch ofVanderbilt's growth has increased tremendously, and the theater's site has been chosen for a new rehabilitation facility which will be part of a link between the Medical Center and the Veteran's Administration Hospital. That means a move is in the making, and the quicker the better. For more than a year Cecil Jones, the director of the theater, has been casting a roving eye about the campus for a substitute, and it seems that he has found one in Neely Auditorium. Neely, which was built. as a chapel in 1925 and witnessed compulsory morning services for the entire student body before classes six days a week, is now used'irregularly for any number of campus events. Much of the time it stands unoccupied, and the completion of the Sarratt Commons will severely limit its remaining uses. That makes it ideal for renovation and reassignment to the VUT. I think we can say that Neely is a minimally used facility in a location that is of potentially high use, Jones said, and that is one of the factors involved in our request to convert it for our needs. Jones' proposal to the University planners makes elaborate plans for a commission to study the feasibility of Neely's conversion, using as a basic design a project funded by the Ford Foundation and pub- lished in The Ideal Theatre: Eight Concepts. One of the criteria for this project, which makes it particularly malleable to Vanderbiltfs needs, was that it should provide maximum flexibility in production mode and not be dependent on complex machinery. The new plans would not entail the construction of a proscenium stage, like that at the VUT' now, due to poor sight lines in Neely fthe floor is completely f'latJ, but would promote a more unconventional and flexible approach to theater design. Exact configuration of the stage and seating arrangement fwhich would preferably have a mini- mum of 300 seats! and the requirements for exterior construction have yet to be determined. The proposal predicts a preliminary budget, for planning purposes, of S500,000 to S700,000. We hope to begin our interior construction by this summer, Jones said. Hopefully that means that we will be in the new theater a year from then, or the fall of 1975. But that may be a bit optimisticfl The move would mean a lot in terms of the future of the VUT. For one thing, it would move the Theater back to the heart of the campus, which couldn't hurt its attendance. And the modern, flexible facility would allow for more experimentation and for a freer theatrical mode for Vanderbilt and for the community, which is of no small importance in a city like Nashville where quality drama is rare. Beyond a technical improvement of in the facilities of the Theater, Jones would like to see an increase in the faculty- . . . in the classroom, the production aspects, and in such things as costume design, play writing, and so on -that would develop the VUT's capacity for the needs of its majors. With the present faculty only so many major productions can be mounted at one time, and that of coulse limits the number of people allowed to perform. It discourages new people in the group, Jones said, to try out only against the very good people-and often the same people-in play after play. The situation where all the best can be in every play fwould be alleviated! if one more director were added to the faculty. t'We must add to the faculty then. We are doing as much as we can with the resources we now have. When the additions we want are made, then an expansion of our program will be possible. THEATRE l 19
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Page 24 text:
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Him Y ' ' as-:I af- '2 . i Y, ix g A . 5 ,Sn f ad Q V E I Xe here ever would-but they still intend to tear it down, sometime in the near future. Evans feels that the success and activity of the MECCA program over the past year has gone a long way toward reinforcing the possibilities of making it a permanent or near-permanent facility, but University planning is still toying with ideas to eliminate it and use the grounds for some new construction. The Art House was originally designed to provide students with ready access to the tools and materi- als necessary to create art, but it has flowered into something more than that recently. Evans feels that art should call attention to itself and to its activities and he has done so with his students at MECCA-in dozens of ways. This year he has de- veloped the music studio to be a blaring center of electronic amplification at all hours, he has also seen to it that the plaster constructions-some re- sembling tarantulas and some resembling people and some resembling both-made in art classes have been set out on campus grounds. He has, in short, lived up to his own injunction to become visible. 8 THE SECOND CENTURY But there are fruitflies in the oatmeal. Evans has some dissatisfaction with the general type of student Vanderbilt attracts-the academic nature of the students. The creative individual isn't drawn to the Uni- versity, he complains. When they do come, they find that Vanderbilt lacks a core of creative stu- dents, and they either leave or bide their time till they graduate . . . You cannot attract creative individuals without promising them a core of other creative individuals to interact with. And until Vanderbilt does provide that core, it won't draw creative students . . . Yes, it's caught in a Catch- 22. Evans sees three possible routes that the Art House might take in the future. One possibility is that the destruction of the building will force it to disintergrate into the other departments and no longer exist as a separate entity. More optimis- tically, it could become an arts and science com- munications center, supplying an interested stu- dent body With all the resources it might need in whatever media it is interested. Or, as Evans him- self prefers, it would become a media experi- mentation center, an expanded version of its present self, and live up to its new oiiicial title. I would like to drag Vanderbilt, Evans says, chuckling, into the 21st century Qkicking and screaming if I have tok and not just catch up with the 18th or 19th. 1 .gf- X
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