Act III: Home of the Theatre Program
The Development of the Theatre Facilities
In 1969, the theatre program faced many questions. Among these were: how were they going to fund the program? Were there enough bodies to perform a play? And who would help lead the program? While these were key questions to ask, possibly the biggest question the program faced was what facilities would they use for the newly founded program? This would be an ongoing question that the program faced until 1982, which would force the program to improvise with the temporarily facilities it is given for the first thirteen years.
Temporary Home
In the Spring of 1969, the University saw a new facility pop up: a multi-colored tent that measured at 124 by 150 feet. The tent could accommodate around 250 people; it had a sound booth, it offered the proper lighting needed for performances, and it also had a lobby that was roughly 700 square feet. The tent had access to water, a telephone, and electricty lines that were ran from nearby buildings tent. While it seemed to have the proper accommodations, it did lack a couple few features. The first feature was proper plumbing for bathroom use and air control. When the first production began in the late fall of 1969, a cold front came through and delivered almost freezing temperatures. It was described as “teeth chattering”.[1]
A Quick Fix
In 1972, the University decided to finally bring the theater tent down and pack it away for good. This was possible because the program was moved inside and given a new home: the Science Auditorium. The Science Auditorium offered everything that the theater program could possibly need at the time. Not only did it offer better lighting, proper plumbing and climate control, but it also offered better accommodations for the classroom part of the program. Professors had a proper facility to for lectures with tools like overhead projectors that were limited in the old facility. Despite the new home for the program, conflicts arose between the theater program and other technical programs. John Bolte, a key facility staff member at the university, made that clear in a letter to Dean Micarelli. Bolte informed Micarelli that the Science Auditorium’s main purpose was for “a large lecture auditorium first, and a theatre secondly”. This conflict came about after the stage and other props from the theatre program were taking up a significant amount of the space in the Auditorium.[2]
At last, A Home for the Theatre Program
Shortly after officially becoming its own program in 1981/1982, as part of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Science Auditorium was renamed the Theatre Building. The theatre complex received a huge facelift in 1983, in which 1.2 million dollars was invested in improvements. That investment included new classrooms, rehearsal rooms, an added theatre and much more. To this day, that old Science Auditorium is still the home for the University of Central Florida's Theatre Department.[3]