Curtain Rises on Renovated Eastman Stage
(Don Cochran)
After years of planning and months of design and construction, musicians and other performing artists have a new stage at the Eastman Theatre.
The $5 million renovation, completed last October, consists of a custom shell designed to enhance acoustics and complement the aesthetics of the building's architecture, better stage lighting, an improved orchestra pit with new mechanics and hydraulics, state-of-the-art rigging, and several backstage enhancements.
"Everyone loves the Eastman Theatre," says Eastman School Dean James Undercofler. "Yet in its 81 years of constant use, it previously had undergone only one major renovation."
Opened in 1922, the 3,094-seat theater was commissioned by George Eastman as a center for music, dance, and silent film with live orchestral and organ accompaniment—and "for the enrichment of community life," the motto inscribed on the theater's façade.
Eastman musicians officially "inaugurated" the new stage during the school's alumni weekend with two concerts. The first, by the Eastman Wind Ensemble, featured a guest appearance by Frederick Fennell '37E, '39E (MS), '88 (HNR) in his final appearance at Eastman before his death two months later. The second featured the Eastman-Rochester Chorus and Eastman Philharmonia performing the world premiere of Four Seascapes for Chorus and Orchestra, a work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and Eastman alumnus Dominick Argento '58E (PhD), commissioned to celebrate the Sibley Music Library's 100th anniversary.
