Arts space crunch forces Law School group to perform at Drexel

The University's performing arts space crunch has forced the Law School's Light Opera Company to perform tonight's production of the musical Pippin at Drexel University's Mandrell Theatre. A lack of performance space at the University has pushed the play off campus and onto the stage of the neighboring school. And performance space is not the only problem, group members said earlier this month. Group members said they have to be even more creative to find rehearsal space. They often have to practice song and dance routines in rooms at local churches, members' apartments, or the upper lobbies of high rise buildings. The group exhausted all the theater options at the University prior to selecting Drexel's theater, L.B. Kregenow, a third year law school student and chair of the group, said earlier this month. Kregenow said the group first tried the Annenberg School Theater, which is where it held its show last year, but could not book space there. And other campus theaters were not even seriously considered because of costs or constraints, Kregenow said. For example, groups who perform in the University Museum auditorium have to pay insurance and pay to move a baby grand piano from the stage. Irvine Auditorium is too big and cavernous for such productions, Kregenow said. He said the group worried sound would have been lost in there. Zellerbach Theater in the Annenberg Center is too big and too expensive, Kregenow said. "The only groups that can get in there are old and have been here forever," she said. Unfortunately, she said, the inconvenience of performing on another campus does not even have monetary benefits. The group is paying $3,500 to perform at Drexel while all of the theaters at the University were less than $1,500, with the exception of Zellerbach. Kregenow blamed the problem on both a lack of performing arts space available on campus and the system for alloting the existing space. This system puts Performing Arts Council groups into a lottery and gives other groups the leftovers. She also said the Light Opera Company feels discriminated against because it is a graduate student group. "They sort of say 'you are a graduate group and we have all these undergraduate groups to worry about,' " Kregenow said. But PAC chair Stuart Gibbs said graduate groups have never asked to be in PAC. He said that although all of the member groups are also recognized by the Student Activities Council, PAC's constitution allows a non-SAC group to be voted into PAC. He said he is not sure whether a group like the Light Opera Company would be approved, however, because PAC attempts to regulate the number of performing arts groups and discourages groups with overlapping purposes. "They are welcome to come to us," he said.

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