The newly opened Rogers Glass Center for The Arts at the University of Dayton has begun holding classes for students in the performing, visual and media arts.
The new space, named after the late Roger Glass— a top donor for the project, a UD Class of '67 alum, and CEO of Marion’s Piazza— allows the college to consolidate six different buildings that were spread out around downtown and across the UD campus into one central location
“It’s very Important to us that this space be a community space as well as a space for learning, and a place to celebrate the great work our students and faculty are doing at UD,” said Danielle Poe, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
University officials said that the building will be a new landmark for both the University and the city, allowing for more collaboration with UD students and faculty, and providing community engagement through public events.
The center features:
- A 386-seat concert hall, which can be acoustically tuned for musical performances from small ensembles to large orchestras.
- An experimental theater with 244 seats and flexible space for performances that allow lighting and sound from any angle.
- A visual arts gallery with space, lighting and audio visual connections for two- and three-dimensional as well as digital art.
- Experiential learning facilities for Flyer TV, Flyer Radio and Flyer News, including a TV studio, control room, video-editing lab, radio studio and audio production suite.
The center is currently being used for approximately 20 college classes — including film, radio, and theater production.
Rachel Robinson teaches theater design for the theater, dance and performance technology department. She was getting ready for her first class in the new theater space.
“And we’re going to talk about how to use space, because this is a flexible black box theater, and we can basically set it up any way we want, which a lot of theaters don’t have that kind of flexibility.”
Dean Poe said that the space has scheduled events for every night in April, and they are already planning for the fall, where one of the events will be the Ohio Humanities speaker series.
The building will have a soft opening for the public with the gallery exhibit "Get Together" January 27, featuring 85 works from local artists.
A grand opening celebration is scheduled for April 13.
