Eisenhower Auditorium is Penn State’s primary theatrical performance center. The building opened in 1974 and was later named for former University President Milton S. Eisenhower. It hosts about two hundred concerts, theatre and dance performances, Penn State commencements, and other events annually.
In recent seasons, the auditorium has hosted nationally touring Broadway productions—including “The Book of Mormon,” “Jersey Boys,” “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical”— and other touring artists including Silkroad Ensemble, Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Béla Fleck, Soweto Gospel Choir, Rhiannon Giddens, Yo-Yo Ma, and STOMP.
When completed in 1974, the new $6 million building helped to lend an “arts district” feel on campus, with its proximity to the schools of music, theatre, and visual arts, as well as the then-new Palmer Museum of Art. In 1977, it was renamed Eisenhower Auditorium after Penn State’s eleventh president.
The midcentury modern-style auditorium’s vast open space requires no columns to support the towering ceiling and sweeping grand tier and balcony. Approximately 2,500 seats are accommodated on the three levels, with ground-level seating arranged in rows of thirty-five to sixty seats in a continental manner with no central aisle.
Concerts by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Steinberg and the University Choirs directed by Raymond Brown, christened the new auditorium in May 1974. Penn State President John W. Oswald introduced the orchestra with Ludwig van Beethoven’s words: “Music should strike fire in the heart of man.”
Guest soloists soprano Phyllis Curtin, mezzo Betty Allen, tenor Seth McCoy, and bass Ara Berberian accompanied the ensembles on all three nights. The program included Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Hector Berloiz’s overture to “Benvenuto Cellini.”
The auditorium opened as a stage for Artist Series events, the university’s primary program for visiting performing artists which originated in 1957. These shows and concerts had formerly been held in Schwab Auditorium and Rec Hall, neither of which was adequate as a performance space from a theatrical, acoustic, or seating standpoint.
However, the new building’s acoustic-friendly layout and ample seating provided not only an outstanding theater and concert hall, but also a venue for a variety of Penn State student ensembles and clubs, community organizations, including the University Concert Committee’s rock shows, Greek Sing, and local performances of “The Nutcracker.”
Perhaps the most unique event was the 1976 American Bicentennial Opera, “Be Glad Then America,” by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John LaMontaine. Commissioned by the Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanistic Studies, it featured Boston Opera director Sarah Caldwell conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Penn State Choirs, and soloists including David Lewis as King George III and folk singer Odetta as the Muse of Liberty.
Caldwell placed candle-lit singers in the reverberation chambers behind the metal mesh walls, surrounding the audience in one memorable scene, and cast ROTC students as British redcoats shooting over the Pittsburgh symphony in the pit, as they re-enacted the fight with the minutemen at Lexington in another.
The College of Arts and Architecture’s full-time auditorium management staff initially managed administration and production in the new facility. A decade later, in 1985, Penn State merged the facilities and program management into one group, and the Center for the Performing Arts was created.
Offices for the Center for the Performing Arts—including the Arts Ticket Center, which oversees ticketing services for all College of Arts and Architecture units plus other clients—are in the building.
Heather Longley
Sources:
Konior, Nick. “Eisenhower is ready for any type of show,” Daily Collegian, April 15, 1988.
Moore, Karen M. “Ear before the eye in Eisenhower,” Daily Collegian, November. 4, 1981.
Pennsylvania State University, Institute for the Arts and Humanistic Studies, “Be glad then, America” opera production records, 00095, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Pennsylvania State University.
First Published: September 29, 2024
Last Modified: November 25, 2024