Slippery Rock University is currently in the process of renovating its main performing arts theatre, Miller Auditorium.
The ongoing renovations to Miller, which will take at least two and a half years to complete, will ultimately result in a wonderful new performing arts studio for the campus community to venture to for their viewing pleasure.
The new additions will make the building more practical, and are a needed adjustment to an out-of-date theatre.
The renovations needed to be done, and in the long run, they will be beneficial for the school.
But one cannot help but feel a little sorrow for the current performing arts students that have been relocated to their less than spectacular temporary department location of the old University Union.
The move was probably the best option for the school to make, but it doesn’t mean it makes for a great situation. Or even a good one.
While the old Miller Auditorium stage was hardly the most glamorous of venues, it was certainly still far more adequate a spot for theatre than the place no longer worthy enough to store textbooks..
Any professional atmosphere the school was clinging to with an out-of-date stage has been erased with an out-of-date union simply not fit for theatre.
Like previous stated, it wasn’t like the school had much of a choice. Renovations had to be done in order to assure a better future for the program.
But the present for the program seems to have been stashed away in the university’s new storage closet.
Let’s be hypothetical and pretend that you were a sophomore theatre major. If the school finishes the renovations to Miller on time, and who knows what setbacks could occur, you would get one semester to experience the joy of an actual stage.
The rest of your college experience is spent performing in a setting more suitable for an elementary school play than a college production.
In a major built around its atmosphere, the current students at SRU will be lacking in that experience.
That says a lot about the students who are in the program. They’ll have to work hard with the professors to make the most out of this situation.
We admire them for that.
They won’t be the first department to suffer relocation for an extended period of time.
But having to adjust environments to study typical classroom courses, such as psychology, may be annoying, but it doesn’t have the same impact as the performing arts programs.
It’s not the end of the world for the department or its students.
Those students will still receive the same high-quality education from the school’s wonderful professors as they would have back in Miller.
But it just won’t look as nice.
