EDITORIAL: III communication

When a cappella, theater and dance groups can find suitable rooms to use, they typically have to pay exorbitant fees or accept odd, inconvenient assigned-use hours. And that's if they can find suitable space at all. More often than not, impromptu jam sessions in members' living rooms -- and performances in places like the Nursing Education Building's acoustically questionable Dunlop Auditorium -- are the norm. The proposed Perelman Quadrangle student center project won't do much to alleviate the space crunch; it doesn't include the sought-after black box theater performers clamored for and won in the now-scrapped Revlon Center. The renovations that will put a highly touted "flexible proscenium stage" with variable capacity seating into Irvine Auditorium are also part of the Perelman Quad project, but after Irvine becomes first-class performance space, it may be priced out of performing arts use -- or placed off-limits entirely by administrators. So we're left wondering: Why take away even one square foot of the acceptable, in-use performing arts space at Penn, when it isn't enough and no additions or improvements are in progress? We know that a construction timetable for the Annenberg School Theatre conversion has not yet been determined. But we maintain that a program responsible for bringing in occasional, high-powered speakers -- who usually don't interact with undergraduates in any meaningful way while on campus -- doesn't deserve its own custom-made forum. Clearly, Penn's diverse performing arts community does.