The Musical Arts Center on Indiana University’s campus is undergoing renovations that will help improve operations and expand the scope of performances that can take place there.
About 2,000 performing arts students use the center. The university also hosts concerts and performances there year-round. It was partially renovated last in 1999, and expanded in 2016, but this is the first time there will be more comprehensive upgrades – nearly $16 million worth – since it first opened in 1972. The IU Board of Trustees approved the project in February.
Tom Kernan, Ted Jones Associate Dean for Artistic Operations at IU’s Jacobs School of Music, said over the next few years, renovations to the lights, dimmers and sound system will take place. The stage, original to 1972, will also be replaced. Kernan called it “some of the equipment that really allows the magic to happen.”
“There's a big 48-foot turntable that spins around that allows for scenery to move in a circle,” he said. “There are these big wagons that move laterally that allow things to come from the wings onto the center stage, so that equipment that allows for the sort of the effects of theater to take place, that's going to take us a few summers to get all of that work done inside the space.”
Other work includes renovations to the roof, as well as chairs and benches within the auditorium. Kernan hopes these changes will increase the scope of performances they can have.
“Having state of the art equipment will make quite a difference, so that we can take on projects that really have things fly in and move around and spin around and be lit and beautiful in the way that we want our students to see it when they're out working in Europe and the United States and Asia and anywhere in the world that they might be performing,” he said.
During renovations over the next two years, some events will be held at alternative locations around campus and town. The opening opera in the fall will be at the Buskirk Chumley Theater and an opening orchestra concert will take place at Switchyard Park.
Other nearby projects
Just down the street from the MAC, the McKinney Fountain is being torn down and replaced with more outdoor seating areas, which Kernan said have been lacking. The fountain was built over two decades ago.
“We were starting to see annually a lot of cracks and need for repair in the physical face of the fountain itself,” Kernan said, “and so every spring there had become a ritual of trying to patch it up as best as possible, so it was really beloved, but it was past its lifetime. And so, looking at not being able to keep it as is, the item that we knew we really needed outside was some additional seating, so that people could enjoy the beautiful outdoor aspect of campus, and that seemed like a really prime location for it.”
Work is underway and will conclude in early fall. It is being funded by repair and rehabilitation dollars.
