An anonymous gift of $7 million to Scripps will enable the College to create a performing arts center on the Scripps campus, President Nancy Y. Bekavac announced today.
"This magnificent gift allows us to begin reconstruction on Garrison Theater and turn it into a center for music and dance not only for Scripps but for all of Claremont and the surrounding communities," said Bekavac. "This is the largest grant for construction the College has received since Miss Scripps’ founding gift." Work on the new center is scheduled to begin in spring 2002 and be completed by November 2003.
Scripps is the lead college for the instruction of music and musical performance for Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, and Scripps Colleges. The program has been housed for 40 years in a 6,000-square-foot space on the Scripps campus.
The new Performing Arts Center will consist of a renovation of the existing 700-seat Garrison Theater, including a new rehearsal/recital hall, to be named the MaryLou and George Boone Hall after a lead gift by the couple last year. In addition, the center at 10th Street and Dartmouth Avenue-located at the main entrance to campus-will include teaching studios, seminar rooms, practice rooms, offices, a recording studio, and a music library. With the new design adding 10,000 square feet to the existing structure, a total of 26,400 square feet is slated for music instruction and resources, excluding the mainstage auditorium. The completed complex will then measure 44,000 square feet.
Music students and faculty will gain performance space for their largest productions and additional practice rooms to satisfy the current 24-hour-per-day demand. The new facility will also provide space for convocations of the entire Scripps community.Boora Architects, based in Portland, Oregon, will oversee the project. Specializing in design for higher education, Boora has designed Pomona College’s Seaver Theater, The Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts at UC Davis, and the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. The firm is known for its preference for locally produced products, recycled or recyclable materials, and energy efficient design elements. Boora’s design for Scripps College retains the integrity of the 1962 structure of Garrison Theater, while expanding the center with the addition of separate but immediately adjacent wings to the west and the east of the building. The Millard Sheets mosaic mural on the southern façade of Garrison and the Jean Ames tapestries in the theater’s foyer will remain untouched.
Refurbishing and expanding the theater complex enables the College to act on an additional goal: to become a performing arts resource for the region. In cooperation with performing arts organizations in the Southern California region, Scripps hopes to establish a regular program of performances that are available on a subscription basis to the general public and for educational purposes for The Claremont Colleges and the local school community.
Michael Deane Lamkin, vice president and dean of faculty as well as professor of music commented: "The arts, unlike other areas of academe, engage the individual on a complex level of intellectual demand and artistic sensitivity. Experiencing the arts can make a fundamental difference in the education of students-a difference we at Scripps and in Claremont want for our students as another way to make us stand out and make our students better prepared for life."