EDITORIAL: Some rooms of their own

The Performing Arts CouncilThe Performing Arts Councildeserves better thanThe Performing Arts Councildeserves better thancontinuous apologies andThe Performing Arts Councildeserves better thancontinuous apologies andtenuous promises fromThe Performing Arts Councildeserves better thancontinuous apologies andtenuous promises fromadministrators aboutThe Performing Arts Councildeserves better thancontinuous apologies andtenuous promises fromadministrators aboutrehearsal space.The Performing Arts Councildeserves better thancontinuous apologies andtenuous promises fromadministrators aboutrehearsal space.___________________________ Sadly, that's not the case for the groups that make up the Performing Arts Council, whose members are still struggling with the lack of quality rehearsal space on campus. PAC groups have shown a willingness to think innovatively about where and when they can hold practices, through plans like the one advanced last year to renovate the old Eric 3 theater on 40th Street. These aspiring dancers, singers, musicians and actors have demonstrated a capability to work and refine their crafts under less than ideal conditions, in places like members' living rooms and the former First Church of Christ Scientist on Walnut Street. (The church does have potential, though, if the University would only pitch its renovation to the right donors -- or if PAC member groups would solicit their own, successful alumni, who are all too familiar with the lack of quality rehearsal space at Penn.) When the Annenberg School Theater closes in the spring to accommodate the growth of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, PAC groups will lose one of the best of their available spaces. Then Perelman Quad renovations will shrink or altogether eliminate rehearsal rooms in Irvine Auditorium and Houston Hall -- and PAC members still have no assurances from administrators about the amount of space they will gain when the project is done, much less how good the space will be. This is inexcusable. At a school of Penn's caliber, inexpensive access to adequate performance and rehearsal facilities shouldn't be an item at the bottom of administrators' priority lists. It's as much a right as state-of-the-art equipment and gear are for varsity athletes.