Department of Theatre prepares for big move

GCSU’s Department of Theatre has more changes than its address ahead as actors must adjust to the new black box theater set to open with the renovated Campus Theatre, located at 135 Hancock St. in downtown Milledgeville, later this spring.

The department’s offices are now located in Porter Hall with performances occurring in Russell Auditorium and Max Noah Recital Hall, and classrooms in different buildings across campus.

Students and faculty, including Chair of the Department of Theatre Karen Berman, will now have one space to call their own.

“The whole department will have office space over there,” Berman said. “Class times will be much easier for us because most of our classes will be held in the new campus black box theater,” Berman said. “We will still have some of our classes, especially our theatrical heritage, offered outside of the new campus black box theater.”

Gabrielle Byndloss, a sophomore theater major, is also happy about having the offices and other resources in one space.

“Right now all of our stuff is spread out through different places,” Byndloss said. “A lot of our stuff will now be in one place. There’s still stuff that we’ll have to go back and forth through. Costumes won’t be in that theater downtown, but it’s still more of a benefit than it would be to stay where we are now.”

Byndloss is also glad that the theater department will have a place to call its own.

“For the longest time we’ve had to share Max Noah with the chorus groups,” Byndloss said. “That’s really hard to work around their schedule, along with sharing Russell with everybody else. It’s actually going to be kind of our own space to work in. We get priority and then we work with everyone else. It’s going to be nice to have our own little space to put shows on whenever we want to.”

The new black box theater is different from the ones seen at Russell and Max Noah because the audience has other options besides facing only one side of the stage. The new facility will allow the option of surrounding the stage with seats.

Because of the new style of the stage, a different acting style is needed as well.

“The audiences are going to see the actors up close,” Berman said, “so our acting techniques have to be refined and more realistic. Our acting style will have to be very refined and real, so that when you look in the actor’s eyes you know they’re really feeling what they say they’re feeling. This is going to challenge our acting teachers to really work with our actors to make their performances even more real.”

Nicholas Marrone, a junior theater major, is staying positive about the extra work that will be involved with the audience now closer to the stage.

“I think it’s going to be a lot more different for us just because we’ve never been in that space,” Marrone said. “We’re going to be able to do a lot more personal shows. I think it will give us a chance to be more creative with our shows and how we do them.”

Students have other reasons for why the move is beneficial besides having everything in one space.

The dance minor program is under the theater department and will also benefit from the move.

“The new black box theater will also have equipment that allows us to lay down a marley floor, so that dancers can dance safely,” Berman said. “That will be an additional performance space for dancers as well, but we will continue to need our dance rehearsal spaces in Miller gym and Chappell as well. Russell will continue to house our dance minor performances because it is so much bigger.”

Renovations to the Campus Theatre are coming along, but the theater department is still unsure of when it will be able to move into its new home.

“I don’t have an exact date of move in,” Berman said. “Every day when we go over to see what’s happening, we’re excited to see the new progress.”

Posted by Courtney Murrah on Feb 19 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry