U-M raises curtain on Arthur Miller Theatre design

April 2006

By Jared Wadley
News Service

When Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller was approached by his alma mater, U-M, to lend his name to a new theater, his response was a simple postcard.

"The theatre is a lovely idea," he wrote in fall 1997. "I've resisted similar proposals from others, but it seems right from Ann Arbor."

Plans for the new 250-seat Arthur Miller Theatre were approved March 17 by the Board of Regents. The theater is being designed by Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg (KPMB) Architects, a Canadian firm with a specialty in performing arts venues, including the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and renovation of Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto.

"The Arthur Miller Theatre will pay tribute to an extraordinary man and a loyal alumnus whose legacy strikes a special chord among U-M theater students," says President Mary Sue Coleman. "The theater, and the Walgreen Drama Center in which it will reside, will add immeasurably to our ability to educate the actors, directors and theater professionals of the future."

Miller, who died Feb. 10, reviewed the plans last year with Music School Dean Karen Wolff.

"We are excited that the regents have approved the theater's design," Wolff says. "This state-of-the-art theater will continue to inspire countless students as they learn and practice their skills, similar to Arthur Miller's experiences at the University as he honed his ability as a young playwright."

A native of New York City, Miller attended U-M in the 1930s with financial assistance from the National Youth Administration, which paid him $15 a month to feed a couple thousand mice in a cancer research laboratory. As a student, Miller washed dishes for his meals and worked as night editor for the Michigan Daily. He graduated from U-M in 1938 with a degree in English.

During the decades that followed, Miller's talents became world-renowned, but he continued to visit his alma mater, often scheduling trips when many students were on campus because he enjoyed meeting with them.

"With us, it was always the students he had in mind," Wolff says.

Last spring during his final visit to the campus, Miller participated in "A Conversation with Arthur Miller," in which he spoke about his experiences at the University and the challenges and rewards of being a playwright.

The theater design is inspired by courtyard theater. Flexible seating and two stage options, end or thrust, will allow a configuration best suited for a given production. A shallow balcony will wrap around the sides and rear of the hall to create a design that provides an intimate theater experience.

"Arthur was most concerned about flexibility of the space and how our theater students would be able to try out different stagings," Wolff says.

The theater, sited strategically at the entrance to North Campus, will be a three-level structure of masonry, glass and metal. It will be a stately glass cube by day and a luminous beacon to campus by night, says Thomas Payne of KPMB Architects.

The center will bring together the now-scattered faculty offices and academic spaces of the departments of Theatre & Drama and Musical Theater into facilities specifically designed for teaching and learning the dramatic arts. Both departments offer a stimulating blend of cultural diversity, intellectual rigor and professional experiences for students.

A learning loft will house theater and musical theater components, including rehearsal rooms, studios and classrooms. Room proportions will give students rehearsal spaces that have the same dimensions as current campus performance venues.

The project includes a new classroom auditorium, a 17,000 square-foot space with seating for 460. The auditorium will meet the increasing need for large classrooms on North Campus, where the 230-seat Chrysler Center is the largest venue. By comparison, many classrooms on the University's Central Campus offer up to 500 seats.

The Walgreen and auditorium projects will total 97,500 gross square feet, with an estimated 55,000 net square feet of program space. The cost is about $42.8 million, with funding provided from gifts and investment proceeds. More than $15 million in private support has been received, including $10 million from Charles Walgreen Jr. and his wife, Jean.

Construction will eliminate about 250 staff and visitor parking spaces.

A plan to expand neighboring parking lots and re-allocate staff and visitor spaces also was presented at the March 17 regents' meeting (see article below). Regents urged the administration to analyze the feasibility of accelerating plans for a parking structure on North Campus.

A ceremonial groundbreaking and memorial for Miller will be held in the fall, Coleman told regents.