The Drama-Music department will be doing a little spring cleaning in the next couple of years, pending final approval of state funding for renovations of the West Campus facilities.
“This is going to be a really exciting place, more so than it already is,” said Tom Garey, chair of the theater department.
Old electrical circuits, inadequate acoustics, insufficient practice room space, and outdated technology – these are just a few of the reasons that students and faculty are excited about the arrival of state funding, to the tune of $10.4 million for renovations and remodeling.
“We’re looking to bring everything back up to code and state of the art,” said Garey, expressing special concern about accessibility.
“The wheelchair area is a joke,” he said. “A.D.A. (American with Disabilities Act) says we need to accommodate a minimum amount of wheelchairs.”
Some of the proposed uses of the funding advocate adding better wheelchair access throughout the Garvin Theatre, including up to the light and sound booths, catwalks, as well as creating more wheelchair seating in the aisles.
“Our goal is providing better access to the public and students,” said Garey.
While accessibility is the main priority, other areas of interest for renovations include making the Garvin Theatre a state-of-the-art facility with automated fly systems and good enough acoustics to allow the Quire of Voyces to rehearse and perform on campus, as many would like.
Unfortunately, Nathan Kreitzer, chair of the music department and head of the Quire, said the funding will not be enough to improve the theater to a point where his group will feel comfortable performing there.
“We’d like to do the whole nine yards, but it looks like we’re going to have to do the bare minimum,” said Kreitzer.
Before construction can begin, the money must go through a final allocation process.
Garey said the money to fund the project is sort of “sitting around,” awaiting final approval. The architectural plans are currently in the Chancellor’s Office, which, if approved, will be passed to the Department of Finance.
When they agree the project is financially feasible, the plans make their ways to the Department of Public Works to ensure the designs are up to standard.
The department then forwards recommendations to the Governor’s Office in Sacramento for the final release of the primary funding.
“We’re going to have a really exciting, serviceable building,” said Garey.
To make for better music performances, Garey said everything in the ceiling of the theater will be removed, and only the catwalk will remain exposed.
“It’s easier to have too much reverb, and then dampen, than not having enough reverb,” he said.
Garey and architect John Fisher hope to be issuing bids to contractors by May 2007. Construction could begin as early as summer that year.
