A Glimpse at our Facilities

The Creative Arts Center is collaboratively the location of The Division of Art, The Division of Music, and The Division of Theatre and Dance. We share many of the facilities and work together to create an exciting locale for the making of art. By the close of 2004 the Division of Theatre and Dance will have seen millions of dollars of renovation in at least a third of our spaces and other spaces throughout the Creative Arts Center with the promise of more to come.

We have facilities to accommodate the demands of a thriving and intense program of training. See how we make use of these spaces by clicking onto the gallery of Production Photographs, and Student Works.

Theatres
The building houses five performing venues: one newly renovated choral recital hall and four theatre spaces.

The Lyell B. Clay Concert Theatre is a 1,380 seat house with a proscenium stage 60 feet in width, and double that in fly space. This facility has a brand new fly/rigging system and a new $50,000 light board. In addition to a new stage floor, and enhanced acoustical reinforcement. We offer dance concerts, opera and musical theatre performances in this space. Occasionally, we will produce a large dramatic piece in this theatre such as the 2002 performance of It’s a Wonderful Life. This theatre also hosts the Arts and Entertainment series that brings in tours of Broadway shows, concert artists, and other performing groups.

The Gladys G. Davis Theatre was renovated in 2001. This black box, thrust style theatre seats 220. It is our favorite theatre because it boasts a lovely shade of eggplant rather than black while its foyer is lit by the famous “artichoke” chandelier.

There is a full ceiling grid lighting structure and we are enhancing our inventory in the space yearly. In the fall of 2003 the Gladys G. Davis added a new sound system to its equipment upgrade. This is our main performance venue and we produce 4-6 shows in this space each year.

The Vivian Davis Michael Theatre (VDM) was renovated in 2000. This small, proscenium style space is also a flexible seating space. It seats 50-75 people and is used for alternative style works, as well as traditional smaller pieces. It is also home to our Lab Theatre Series which are fully mounted student productions.

Our Puppet Mobile and children’s theatre productions are often produced in this space.

The Antoinette Falbo Theatre is a proscenium-style black box. Seating 100 people, this space is used primarily as a classroom for movement, voice, and acting. Our Community Outreach Program for Children, which culminates in performances for families, and friends performs here. We share this space with the Opera Program which produces their opera scenes here as well. This space also houses a similar full ceiling grid, flexible wood flooring and walls of mirrors, for dancing, singing, and mask work.

Laboratories, Studios, and Classrooms
The Division of Theatre is proud to show you our luxurious scene shop, costume, crafts, painting, puppet shops; labs for lighting, computer design, design and rendering; studios for acting, voice, movement, and dance; and classrooms with the latest technology.

The Scene Shop is broken into two levels. The lower scene shop houses most of our tools and equipment and is the area where most construction is done. The upper shop is home to the painting area, finishing treatment work, welding es work. Running between the two is a brand new (2003) paint frame which enables us to send flats, and constructed pieces up to the second floor for finishing. The frame is large enough for us to paint full scale drops for any of our theatres. The upper level of the scene shop is conveniently located on the same floor as two of our main theatres. It is adjacent to the Gladys G. Davis Theatre and across the hallway from the load doors to the Lyell B. Clay Concert Theatre.

The Craft/Prop Shop is an isolated area within the upper scene shop where we build, and finish small prop items, upholster furniture, and create most of our costume crafts. The area is currently under renovation as we install dyeing and painting equipment for use in this space.

The Puppet Cage is the shop where most of our puppet creations are made. Puppets ranging from larger-than-life scale to various styles; including marionettes, rod, and hand puppets are created here. It is home to our touring company, the WVU Puppet Mobile and our majors in the Puppetry/Creative Dramatics program.

The Costume Shop is located on the second floor of the building not far from the six dressing rooms used to support our performances. One dressing room comfortably accommodates 35. A second smaller dressing room accomodates 15, and the remainder are two-person dressing rooms. The costume shop has 12 brand new table-top machines, purchased Fall 2003; two-table top sergers, two industrial sewing machines, and one industrial serger. We operate with several industrial irons, four large cutting tables, and several hand sewing areas. Our laundry/wardrobe facilities are adjacent to the two-room space along with the offices of our shop manager, and costumer. Our storage space for stock is located two floors below, neatly caged in the trap area of the large Lyell B. Clay Concert Theatre. Thank goodness for large freight elevators!

Our STUDIO spaces consist of the Actor’s Lab, affectionately named the 'SLAB. This space is a big, empty room with chalk boards and a small adjacent space for storage of furniture and props used in scene study. Both the Falbo and the VDM are used as studio spaces, too. In addition, we have two new studio spaces opening up with sprung floors, and mirrors for class space beginning Fall of 2004.

Located on the Evansdale Campus, most of our facilities are in the Creative Arts Center. However, we have the very lovely Dance Studio in E. Moore Hall on the Downtown Campus. This sprung floor studio has plenty of space, walls of windows, and a fully equipped sound system for classes and “works-in-progress” presentations. This space is occasionally used for acting classes as well.

The design/technical area has a small Light Lab, with a small grid, board, and limited instrumentation that is used for exploring production design ideas, and photographing models and other works for portfolios.

The Design Studio for classes in costume, lighting, scenery design, and rendering is filled with natural sun-light, studio drawing tables, and a variety of tools used in the teaching of design ideas and techniques.

The Computer Aided Drafting and Rendering Lab is equipped with new computers (Spring 2003) and will be receiving another influx of new technology Fall of 2003. Basic software programs that are taught include CAD, Lightwrite, and Photoshop.

The College of Creative Arts also houses three Electronic Classrooms available for courses ranging from theatre history and criticism to history of costume and décor. These classrooms are newly renovated (2003) and include all formats of digital technology.

One classroom is designated the Graduate Seminar room. Speaking of graduate students, The Division of Theatre and Dance has two spaces for Graduate Offices that are home to our fourteen graduate teaching assistants.