Why is one of the best theatre schools getting rid of one of their theatres?

by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder

One of the best performing arts colleges is considering eliminating one of their theatres.

I’m going to let that sentence sink in for a moment.

This wacky and confusing action is being considered at Montclair State University where college president Jonathan Koppell is considering closing the L. Howard Fox theater. The space is a flexible black box theatre. On their website, the school states that “in recent seasons the Fox has hosted everything from intimate “Conversations” to large-cast musicals. It is also used as a classroom for acting, directing, lectures and the Department’s “Theatre in the Raw” productions.”

When this news was reported to me, I was take aback because the school is widely considered as one of the best theatre programs in the Northeast. So why would a school like that want to eliminate one of their facilities? To make matter worse, President Koppell’s replacement plan doesn’t make much sense either.

According to reports, the school is considering using theatre facilities at the, recently-acquired, Bloomfield College’s campus. But the problem with that is Bloomfield’s performing arts space is about 7 miles from where the L. Howard Fox theater sits attached to the Life Hall commons. Couple this with reports that performing arts budgets at the school are being slashed by more than 10%, the students and others are getting angry.

There is a petition being circulated which calls for the preservation of the L. Howard Fox theater as a performing space for the students.

“If Theatre & Dance loses the Fox, we lose all hope of continuing to foster productions to the degree that we are now known for,” the petition reads. “Additionally, all of the department's momentum in building up its reputation, as one of the top theatre programs in the state of New Jersey, will be halted.”

Now, it would be one thing if the school was doing this because the theater space is no longer safe or meetings the standards of the institution. But the theater just had major renovations done to it. According to their website, the theatre just got new carpeting and seating plus state-of-the-art lighting/sound systems installed.

So why the change and why is the other option such a bad idea? That’s a great question that I would pose to leadership at Montclair.

Because it makes virtually no sense for one of the best theatre colleges in the country to do such a thing.