2008 Woodie Awards
Who puts the 'art' in liberal arts?
Charlotte Hammond
Issue date: 3/30/07 Section: Arts and Leisure
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Technically speaking, Drew University is not a theater school. Despite the Princeton Review rankings of No. 10 in Best College Theater, Drew University is not a "theater school" in the way that New York University ( No. 14) or Emerson College ( No. 1), colleges who have Bachelors of Fine Arts programs would be considered a theater school. Drew is, of course, a liberal arts university, and the art, music and theater departments are, as music department Chair Garyth Nair said, "arts departments that serve a liberal arts university. We aren't just training people to be professional musicians. It is entirely different from Julliard."
In 2003, the completion of the main portion of the Dorothy Young Center for the Performing Arts marked a new era for arts at Drew. By the time the entire building was completed in 2005, Drew was officially equipped with a 400 seat concert hall, an impressive studio art space and a brand new Black Box Theatre. Though once spread out, these three very different departments had the opportunity to expand, function together, and grow-and each in their own way and at their own pace.
Nair arrived at Drew in 1990 when the music department operated out of Sitterly House and he said faculty members used to joke that they had "seen better conditions in Turkish prisons." The orchestra practiced in Baldwin Gym, where Nair joked his students could "play a little Beethoven, shoot some hoops, play a little Bach, shoot some hoops-there was not a slightest concern for sound."
With inefficient facilities, the department had an extremely difficult time attracting students to study music at Drew. "Parents saw Sitterly and asked where we played. I would sort of mutter 'Oh, in the gym,' and I got a lot of long faces," Nair said.
Prior to the DOYO's construction, both the art and theater arts departments struggled with meager facilities as well. Many of the art classes were held in the basement of Baldwin, while the garish "Commons Theater" emblem at the base of the Commons leaves a reminder of the theater art department's younger years.
In 2003, the completion of the main portion of the Dorothy Young Center for the Performing Arts marked a new era for arts at Drew. By the time the entire building was completed in 2005, Drew was officially equipped with a 400 seat concert hall, an impressive studio art space and a brand new Black Box Theatre. Though once spread out, these three very different departments had the opportunity to expand, function together, and grow-and each in their own way and at their own pace.
Nair arrived at Drew in 1990 when the music department operated out of Sitterly House and he said faculty members used to joke that they had "seen better conditions in Turkish prisons." The orchestra practiced in Baldwin Gym, where Nair joked his students could "play a little Beethoven, shoot some hoops, play a little Bach, shoot some hoops-there was not a slightest concern for sound."
With inefficient facilities, the department had an extremely difficult time attracting students to study music at Drew. "Parents saw Sitterly and asked where we played. I would sort of mutter 'Oh, in the gym,' and I got a lot of long faces," Nair said.
Prior to the DOYO's construction, both the art and theater arts departments struggled with meager facilities as well. Many of the art classes were held in the basement of Baldwin, while the garish "Commons Theater" emblem at the base of the Commons leaves a reminder of the theater art department's younger years.
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