Miami Student

Issue date: 11/30/07 Section: Campus

Presser Hall is currently under renovations to better suit the needs of the department of music. The current cost of this project is estimated to be around $10 million.

During the forums about the new student center held Sept. 20 at Miami University, several students voiced a desire to see big Broadway acts such as Rent and Wicked. But according to Patti Liberatore, director of the Performing Arts Series (PAS), bringing Broadway acts to Miami is "somewhere between hard and impossible."

She added that the reason is quite simple-they don't physically fit.

Currently, Hall Auditorium, Millett Hall and the Gates-Abegglen Theatre are the only venues available for performances.

James Lentini, dean of the School of Fine Arts (SFA), said that these sites are adequate-but not exceptional.

"Taken in whole, the facilities we have here are adequate," Lentini said. "They're pretty good in some areas and adequate in others. And in some areas he'd love to be more than just
minimally acceptable."

To help alleviate some of the space constraints the current buildings have, renovations to Presser Hall and the Center for Performing Arts (CPA) are currently underway. Both of these projects were built into the original master plan for a new performing arts center and though this performing arts center is no longer on the university's radar for construction, the construction on Presser Hall and the CPA should be completed by March 2008, according to a release by the department of physical facilities.

According to Liberatore, Hall Auditorium is especially accommodating and its schedule is filled over a year in advance for performances or guest speakers.

"The challenge we have is that Hall Auditorium has 750 or so seats and everyone wants it all the time," Lentini said. "When anything gets larger than 750 seats it goes to Millett, which is completely unacoustic for almost any musical performance."

Lentini added that Millett Hall, which is transformed from a basketball arena to a performance stage, was only created to accommodate sports, not music. Other sports arenas like the new football dome in Indianapolis bring in acoustic experts to make the venue acoustically sound.

According to Liberatore, it isn't only the crowd that doesn't enjoy the venue.

Continued...

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