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ARCHITECTURE Copyright Lighting&Sound America October 2014 http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/LSA.html 76 • October 2014 • Lighting&Sound America Performance Piece The Theatre School at DePaul University makes a grand entrance on Fullerton Avenue By: David Barbour Left: A view of the building at night, with the Healy stage visible from the street. Above: The interior of the Healy. ePaul University in Chicago has long had one of school had to settle for temporary digs (lasting decades) in the country’s more prominent theatre schools, a disused elementary school and a converted convent but it also lacked facilities that were commen- adjacent to the DePaul campus. For a program led by a D surate with its high-caliber faculty and student team of respected professionals who oversaw two dozen body. The school was founded as the Goodman productions per season, this was a less-than-ideal School of Drama; later, it officially became part arrangement, to say the least. Left photo: Jeff Goldberg/Esto. All rights reserved; Right: Steve Hall, Hedrich Blessing of DePaul, which is located in Lincoln Park. The Happily, those days are past. September 2013 saw the www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • October 2014 • 77 ARCHITECTURE opening of The Theatre School at DePaul University, which celebration of backstage activities and the way it puts brings performance spaces, rehearsal rooms, classrooms, these things, typically shoved out of view, onto a public and costume and scene shops under one stunningly stage.” He notes the “vertical slip windows...deliberately designed roof. “It puts the theatre back in the Theatre arranged in an idiosyncratic rather than a conventional School,” says John Culbert, dean of the Theatre School. grid, reflecting the energy inside. ‘They like the idea of a The building comes with a first-class pedigree: Pelli dynamic, controlled chaos,’ Pelli said of DePaul.” Clarke Pelli and Cannon Design served as architects, with For DePaul students, the building is filled with grace a team from Schuler Shook—Robert Shook, Joshua notes that place their studies in the historical continuums Grossman, and Lisa Bernacchi—serving as theatre of DePaul and of theatre history. A wall display features a consultants, and Kirkegaard Associates, led by Joseph W. complete production history at DePaul and the Goodman A. Myers, Brian Corry, and Joanne Chang, providing School of Drama. The balcony rail in the Fullerton Stage acoustical consultation services. Schuler Shook planned reads, “The Theatre School, founded in 1920, in honor of the two performance spaces, including seating layouts, Kenneth Sawyer Goodman.” (Goodman, a playwright, died sightlines, stages, and stage lighting and rigging systems. in the influenza epidemic of 1918; his parents funded the Kirkegaard Associates provided full acoustical, mechanical Goodman Theatre, and the school, as a tribute to him.) noise, and AV/multimedia systems consultation. Etched glass throughout the building contains quotes from The details of The Theatre School at DePaul have been the likes of Edward Bond, Constantin Stanislavski, and carefully thought through, beginning with its location. other theatre greats, along with such core values as “spiri- Culbert notes that the 165,000-sq. ft. building occupies a tuality,” “creativity,” and “respect.” footprint that makes it the western gateway to the DePaul In addition, the Theatre School is eco-efficient. The US campus. Also, it sits on Fullerton Avenue (intersecting with Green Building Council has awarded the building LEED Racine Avenue), a busy major artery. Because the many Gold status, making it the first performing arts building in shows staged at The Theatre School are open to the larger Chicago to achieve that level of certification. The key community, Culbert says, “The building serves as a portal, features that earned the status include green roofing to where the public will interact with the university.” Indeed, reduce storm water runoff and create additional insulation; DePaul was drawn to Pelli Clarke Pelli because of its water-efficient landscaping and 20%-below-typical water interest in creating a building that facilitated interaction use reduction, optimization of energy performance in between the university and the surrounding neighborhood. HVAC systems; use of recycled construction materials, use “And,” Culbert adds, “it is a most attractive portal, of regional materials and construction waste recycling; use cleverly conceived to blend in with the overall architectural of low-emitting materials throughout and indoor air quality style of the DePaul campus while providing an inviting face management; automated lighting and mechanical systems to the outside world.” The façade is a series of rectangles controls; and multiple design innovations (including in gleaming white Turkish limestone and glass. In the most exterior wall system development and use of insulating eye-catching detail, the 100-seat Healy Theatre, a flexible materials). All in all, at a cost of $73 million, it seems to be space, has been placed at the top of the building, where it a case of money well spent. projects outward; its translucent glass façade can reveal As is often the case with such projects, it was a long the stage inside. This may seem like a counterintuitive idea and winding road to opening day. DePaul first approached but it results in a generous gesture; it’s as if the building is Schuler Shook in 2001 to help develop an architectural inviting the world inside to see what it has to offer. program for what was then a facility for both the theatre As Blair Kamin noted in The Chicago Tribune, “It would and music schools. Three feasibility studies were be wrong to say that the building merely shelters these conducted between 2005 and 2007 for facilities to be built activities. Its principal strength is that it showcases them, in the Chicago Loop, a plan that was ultimately discarded. transforming the design into a kind of performance art, one A fifth feasibility study in 2009, for a theatre building on notably free of such theatre design clichés as blazing Fullerton, proved decisive. A design competition led to the marquees or the masks of tragedy and comedy.” He choice of Pelli Clarke Pelli. (Schuler Shook and Kirkegaard added, “In another step that skillfully breaks up the are now at work on a building for DePaul’s School of building’s mass, a glass-sheathed vertical shaft in the Music, located elsewhere on campus.) middle of the Racine facade presents a veiled peek at students traversing an articulated steel stair painted a The layout lovely Kodak yellow. Such transparency, which also reveals As everyone who was interviewed for this article notes, the the ground-floor student lobby and the various scenery process of integrating so many services and functions into shops (complete with welders and flying sparks), has been one building was not unlike playing several simultaneous a hit with passersby. They seem captivated by the games of Rubik’s Cube. Nevertheless, the various spaces Photos: Steve Hall, Hedrich Blessing 78 • October 2014 • Lighting&Sound America The Fullerton seats 250. “We wanted students to experience the challenge of a thrust stage,” says John Culbert. seem to be optimized in terms of the structure’s overall labs feature ETC Smart Bar dimming along with manual functioning. The ground floor features what is known as curtain rigging and specialty curtains by iWeiss. The the “living room” of the building, featuring a glass- facility’s light lab features ETC’s Net3 networking, 96 enclosed lounge, box office, lobby, and concessions. This Sensor D20E dimmers, 48 ETC Smart Switch DMX- floor also contains the 250-seat Fullerton Stage, about controlled relays, and an ETC Element 250 control which more in a minute. console. Five acting labs feature EAW JF59NT The second through fifth floors contain all spaces loudspeakers; the other five have Renkus-Heinz SG121-2 related to costumes, makeup, and props, along with class- boxes. Each lab room has a Rane MLM65 mixer for rooms, lighting labs, new media workshops, and rehearsal rehearsals and class uses. An Allen & Heath ZED-12FX spaces. (A large prop storage space remains off site.) In mixer in a mobile rack can be connected to the in-room order to make them as useful as possible, the classrooms system for acting lab workshop performances. have been outfitted with enough gear to make them Other design aspects, including wide corridors, open performance-ready; even the first floor lobby has acousti- lounges, and rooftop courtyards, were conceived to help cally treated walls and a small lighting grid. “There was a create an atmosphere of free interaction among students mission to make as many spaces into performance and teachers. The indoor courtyard brings additional spaces,” says Robert Shook, of Schuler Shook. The three sunlight to an already pleasingly bright interior. Rooftop main rehearsal spaces are designed to accommodate the courtyards provide another pleasant retreat, weather dimensions of the school’s main theatres, including the permitting. And just as the vertical shaft of glass on the 1,325-seat Merle Reskin Theatre, located downtown. exterior exposes the building’s activities to the street, Among these spaces, ten rooms designated as acting many rooms are visible to those passing through the www.lightingandsoundamerica.com • October 2014 • 79 ARCHITECTURE Above: The scene shop has a loading dock and a drawbridge that can open up to allow for the passage of large pieces of scenery. Top photo: Jeff Carrion; Bottom: Steve Hall, Hedrich Blessing Top The building is designed to allow for plenty of sunlight, and to reveal the activities of the school to passersby. 80 • October 2014 • Lighting&Sound America interior corridors. This helps to underline the fundamental outfitted with a Mac Pro computer. The room is also concept of theatre as a communal, creative experience, to outfitted with Meyer Sound loudspeakers.