Liberty University to add performing arts center to campus

Coming soon to Liberty University: a new 700-seat performing arts center.

Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. announced the campus addition during the school’s convocation service on Wednesday.

The theater, which could open next year, would include an intricate fly system of ropes and pulleys capable of moving large-scale sets and backdrops, Falwell said during an interview after convocation.

It would be located in one of the most prominent buildings at Liberty, a blue-and-white tower on the school’s north campus that currently is used as a warehouse.

“The theater that we’re using now doesn’t have any (fly system),” Falwell said. “It’s just a glorified classroom. This will give them (the theater arts department) a whole lot more flexibility in production.”

The school’s board of trustees approved the addition of the theater in a meeting Tuesday.

Past estimates for building a new theater from scratch have ranged from $15 million to $20 million, Falwell said. Utilizing the already-standing building brought those estimates down to $2 million to $3 million, he said.

Falwell said he hopes to raise enough money to start renovations this year. The theater then would be ready for use sometime between spring and fall of 2010, he said.

With 80-foot-high ceilings, the building is the “perfect size for a 700-seat theater,” he said.

“It has all the necessary places for dressing rooms and costume rooms and backstage facilities,” Falwell said. “It’s all there, and it’s right next to the student union.”

Linda Nell Cooper, chair of the theater arts department, said students already are “extremely excited.”

“Especially the ones who know they will still be around when it’s ready to be performed in,” she said.

The department currently performs in the 250-seat black box Lloyd Theater, Cooper said.

“We sell out 100 percent of the time and have to turn people away,” she said, “so this will be wonderful for our audiences.”

The department enrolls about 100 students in the majors of acting, musical theater, production, drama ministry and theater education, Cooper said, and “we’re working on a new concentration in acting for film.” The group runs six to eight full-scale productions a year, which may increase with the new addition, she said.

“We’ll be able to actually run a big production at the same time that we run a smaller production,” she said. “It just means more acting opportunities for our students; they’ll be able to learn how to do a professional fly show, just like a Broadway house.”

Falwell said the new space likely will be kept on a tight schedule, but it may be made available for community groups to use if the time allows.

Between its use by the college and its neighboring Liberty Christian Academy, Cooper said, the current theater is busy “24/7.”

Falwell said the university has “needed a new theater for years.”

“It’s something all the students have been asking for more than anything else,” he said.