Student Film Festival and Community Open House
MEADVILLE, Pa. – April 17, 2009 – Allegheny College invites the community to an open house and film festival on Saturday, April 18 to celebrate the opening of the new Vukovich Center for Communication Arts.
The 40,000-square-foot facility—designed for teaching theater, television and related disciplines—will be open to the public from noon to 7 p.m.; student members of Lambda Pi Eta, the communications studies honor society of the National Communication Association, will provide guided tours of the facility from noon to 2 p.m.
In addition, ACTV, the student-run television station within the Department of Communication Arts and Theatre, is hosting the second annual ACTV Student and Alumni Film Festival, with screenings throughout the day beginning at 1 p.m. The last screening begins at 5:15 p.m. The film festival will showcase works in numerous categories including animation, music video, experimental, narrative and documentary and is free and open to the public.
Earlier this month, the Allegheny College Playshop Theatre officially opened the Gladys Mullenix Black Theatre in the Vukovich Center for Communication Arts with a production of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's comedy “You Can’t Take It With You.”
The $23 million center is named in honor of Allegheny trustee emeritus Robert A. Vukovich, class of 1965, and his wife, Laura J. Vukovich, whose gifts to Allegheny were used to fund the center. Additional support came from Gladys Mullenix Black, Allegheny class of 1954; Dorothy Brennen Miller, Allegheny class of 1939; Sue O'Connor Idleman, class of 1955, and her late husband, Lee; Barbara Webb Robinson, Allegheny class of 1948; the Eden Hall Foundation; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program; former Allegheny trustee Marvin Suomi and his wife, Mariclare; and many other alumni and friends of the college.
“I'm overwhelmed by the generosity of Allegheny's loyal alumni and friends whose support has made this project possible,” said Vice President for Development and Alumni Affairs Marjorie Klein. “But, beyond that, it's been a delightful experience for me, personally, to have witnessed and participated in the incredible collaboration that transformed their visions for a world-class center into the reality we celebrate this week. Thanks to their largesse, the Vukovich Center for the Communication Arts will benefit Alleghenians for generations to come.”
Designed by Polshek Partnership Architects, the Vukovich Center completes a dynamic new hub of student and community activity on campus on the northern edge of a green that has become known as the Gator Quad. Other facilities around the Quad include the Henderson Campus Center, the Bowman, Penelec and Megahan Galleries, and the Patricia Bush Tippie Alumni Center.
The site takes advantage of well-traveled paths to encourage pedestrian circulation around and through the building, exposing the campus community to the theater arts. The building is conceived as a teaching theater, and its organization reinforces the preeminence of the creative process: traditional distinctions between “front of house” and “back of house” activities are minimized to de-mystify the process of theater production, and the design fosters informal interaction and creative collaboration among faculty, students and staff.
The building's scale and materiality respond to that of the older buildings on campus without sacrificing the identity of Allegheny's progressive communication arts programs. The facility includes rehearsal and instructional spaces, technologically-advanced video production facilities, a 250-seat theater for hosting performances and public events, related support spaces including scene and costume shops and dressing rooms, and faculty office spaces.
