BU Today | Boston University: In a move that will end a mutually rewarding 33-year partnership with the highly regarded Huntington Theatre Company, the University has decided to sell the 890-seat theater at 264 Huntington Avenue and move College of Fine Arts production, design, and black box facilities to the Charles River Campus. The decision to sell the theater, along with adjoining buildings at 252 and 258 Huntington Avenue, comes after a yearlong assessment of the future needs of the University’s theater arts students.
7 comments:
What a shame. Having truly considered BU as a possible option for school I was attracted to their association with the Huntington. Though I'm sure the higher-ups have seriously considered the pros and cons of selling the buildings and the pros won, I cannot help but wonder if this will be a loss to their program. Walking through the building, you can feel the history. There is a sense of "home-y-ness" that comes with such old theatre spaces.
The students that were afforded opportunities at the regional level in college will hopefully still be afforded those same opportunities but the convenience of having the space connected will no longer be there.
There was little clarification on the specs of the new technical theatre spaces. I wonder if the new spaces will be the newest strongest equipment or if their students will be fit into the already existing CFA. I look forward to seeing where this new opportunity takes the program, and look forward to their new spaces.
THIS MAKES ME SO UPSET. I love the Huntington and all of the facilities Boston University had to offer at the Huntington addresses – their shop was beautiful and the paint shop and offices were so well equipped. It is a quirky and interesting space that would have been great for even more generations of theatre students to be able to work in. The lost connection with the Huntington is going to shatter BU’s potential student base as many of the prospective students are drawn to the history of the building and the rich art it has to offer. While the Charles River campus can still be a lucrative environment, the location geographically of Huntington Ave in the city of Boston was also a bonus. BU’s campus is so widespread and connected to many great parts of the city and losing Huntington Ave is a real shame for general student experiences.
I’m confused. How is selling their main stage a service to their theater students? If BU’s goal is to provide their students with the education and professional experience needed to succeed in this industry how does it make sense to pull students out of a space that has them working with a talented professional company everyday? Their reasoning in this article feels more like a desperate attempt to stem a tide of outrage than a genuine attempt to explain why they’re selling the Huntington. It’s almost insulting that BU is trying to use their students to justify this sale. I get that BU wants money and that the Huntington and the buildings around it are expensive to maintain and far from the rest of campus. But this is going to cost them an incredible theater and while I can’t speak for their students I know that when I was applying there I certainly didn’t care that it was far from the other places I would have had classes. When you’re at BU for portfolio reviews and tours they make a big deal of the Huntington and their connection with the company, and most importantly that students get to work in the space. That last part is was a keystone of their reasoning for why people should come to their program. If I was a freshman there who had come with the expectation of eventually getting to work in that space, I would be livid right now.
I'm friends with several BU students and alumns, and my Facebook feed blew up with this article and others similar to it when the announcement came out. The response from that group was in majority negative, since the Huntington is one of the most attractive things to BU theater students due to the experience and exposure to industry professionals in a work setting it provides to the drama school there. While a lot of people are reacting as though this makes no sense, I'm sure the two parties involved did not weigh the issue lightly, and it's actually an interesting case. Based on what I've read and heard, it sounds like the University was not able to provide the funds and support needed to maintain the theater in good shape. The Huntington Theater Company was not able to support the facilities either, and both parties suffered from the outdated facilities and the inability to update them. While this is definitely a huge blow to the BU theater program, they have plans to build a flexible black box space on their main campus to replace the Huntington, and while likely smaller, those new facilities might provide new and improved experiences for the students.
Although I think the Chief Academic Officer of BU has a good point about centralizing all of the theater students one place on their campus, the selling of the Huntington is a huge loss not only for BU, but for the whole theater education community. I'm sure there are underlying financial issues that provoked the theater being put out on the market, but even so I think the decision to sell is extremely short sighted. I'm hoping the proposal to sell is a publicity stunt by the university being used to provoke philanthropists to back the theater and help keep it under BU's hands and keep the Huntington theater company in place, because otherwise it's simply a severe loss for American theater and a even more heartbreaking loss of the city of Boston and its theater community. In my mind the history of 65 years of ownership is enough to say no to ever selling the building, but the higher-ups at BU have made a decision that may bite them in the backside later. The only thing I can personally say is I'm glad I'm here in Pittsburgh and not at school over there in Boston.
When I first heard about the news that Boston University was selling their theater I was definitely sad, but at the same time happy I didn’t go there because I couldn’t imagine what it must feel like for the current students in the theater program. I regarded the program as being a comparable program to here but with the loss of the theater my views have changed. Also when I first learned about this selling I didn’t feel I was getting the whole story so I am happy to see the school put out this statement. In some senses I understand the school decision and the image they are trying to promote in this time of change, but I can’t not see this as a university decision to put less priority on the arts because it’s not making them enough money as it once was. It makes sense that the school trying to save face in this change by showing good relations with the Huntington and provided space security for them when the new buyers move in. At the same time it’s ridiculous in light of what’s happening to not suspect that there is bad blood between both sides when they didn’t just accept the deal to sell it to the Huntington when they have had such a long and supportive history together.
While this article provides a more in depth look into the details of the decision to separate the Huntington from BU, I'm still concerned that the future of the students has not been addressed. While the head of the theater program did acknowledge a responsibility to create a theater space close to the main campus, that is a endeavor that will take years, benefiting students that apply to the university years from now. What about the students who have committed the next four years to the university? Considering that the agreement between BU and the theater seemed to be well thought out, it doesn't seem likely that BU did not have another space set aside. While there may be theater spaces on the main campus, it certainly will not compare with the expansiveness of the Huntington. What makes the university so special from other schools is its roots in the city of Boston, and it's a pity that monetary needs outweighed the needs of the students.
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