Soon, Barnard will have a new black box theater—but who will use it and when is anybody’s best guess.
The Diana—known to many as the Nexus, or simply the Vag—is scheduled to open at the beginning of the spring 2010 semester. The student center will house a 500-person auditorium, offices for student groups, and an open area in which students will be able to eat and hang out. There will also be extra space for computer facilities and departments such as theater, dance, architecture, and art history.
“Everyone will be using the Diana,” Reni Calister, junior class representative and BC ’11, said. “SGA will definitely have an office, McAC—there is an entirely new architecture space, the CAO will be in the Diana, [and] there are open meeting spaces for clubs.” The new student center will also house the new and bigger Java City, computer labs, conference rooms, study spaces and a new faculty dining room.
One of the widely discussed components of the Diana—the black box theater—has been mentioned as new space for several departments, particularly the theater and dance departments. The allocation of space usually comes down to politics, and it is unclear how the space will be shared.
“I don’t know who is going to control the scheduling of that space in the black box theater,” said Mary Cochran, chair and artistic director of the dance department. “The idea is that it could be used for departmental things, dance and theater and student groups,” she said before adding she would like to use the space for the senior thesis concert.
W.B. Worthen, chair of the theater department, emphasized that the theater will be used by the theater and dance departments and also for student-run productions.
“This theater was not devised as another theater for either of our departments … we were just getting more real estate,” he said. “We have a theater that is for us that we can control … [there is a] considerable effort to keep that space substantially for student-generated productions.”
He also mentioned that the theater department is currently looking for a new production supervisor, an effort to better manage the use of the black box theater. The supervisor would be responsible for “dealing with students who are applying to use the space” as well as providing “technical support for the shows that go into that venue.”
Calister, who is also head of the SGA Nexus Initiative, expressed similar sentiments. She reiterated that the black box theater will enable both departments and student groups to take advantage of the space.
“I’m not totally sure—I know that we have a few ideas,” she said. “The dance department would be able to schedule a block of time. If they have events that they do every year, they will be in the Diana. … We wanted to make it so that their performance groups would also use the space.”
In addition to the dance and theater departments, the architecture and art history departments will be using space in the center to house their facilities.
“The architecture department is moving all of their spaces from Barnard Hall to the Diana Center,” Karen Fairbanks, chair of the architecture department, said. “This includes our design studio, our computer lab which will be expanded, and our faculty offices.”
The art history department will move its studio space and faculty offices out of Barnard Hall and into the student center as well.
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