Changing spaces: Part 1 of 3

 

Across East Genesee Street and three blocks from the Regent Theatre Complex, home of Syracuse Stage, lies the Parkview Hotel. It’s a three-minute walk from the Complex, where Syracuse University drama students spend the majority of their time. 

 

For the first time next year, SU students will live there. The hotel was targeted at drama and design students, given its proximity to the Complex and The Warehouse. But that also means it’s a 15-minute walk from the Brockway Dining Center, the nearest on-campus dining center. It’s 19 minutes from E.S. Bird Library and a 20-minute walk to the Carrier Dome.  

 

Most upperclassman drama students are used to that distance, though – rather than living in the Euclid neighborhood, most live off campus in the area near Marshall Street, Comstock Avenue or East Genesee Street. On the weekends, some students say there’s even little reason to trek to Marshall Street – Dolce Vita and Phoebe’s Restaurant and Coffee Lounge are right across from the Complex. Like the city’s permanent residents, many drama students refer to Main Campus simply as ‘the Hill.’

 

‘There’s definitely a disconnect,’ said Ellie Engstrom, a sophomore design and technical theater major. ‘We go to this gigantic school, yet we are segregated in our little drama pocket.’

 

The life of drama students revolve around their work in the department. They are allowed between 24 and 30 credits outside the department, usually as upperclassmen. For homework, they spend hours analyzing the emotions and intentions of characters in a script or sketching and constructing set design. 

 

There are four Bachelor of Fine Arts majors in the drama department: acting, musical theater, design and technical theater, and stage management. Although it varies by major and year, most of the approximately 250 students in the department have little reason to go to Main Campus, except for food or other extracurricular activities.

 

The disconnect with campus is something Ralph Zito has heard about and witnessed in his first year as chair of the drama department. The option of living in Parkview alleviates the inconveniences of living on Main Campus, but also physically separates students from Main Campus. The hotel has 70 spots for students, according to an article in The Daily Orange published Jan. 31. So far, only 13 students have signed up to live in Parkview – 12 drama students and one design student, said Eileen Simmons, director of housing, meal plan and I.D. card services, in an email.

 

Heather Rubin, a freshman acting major, chose to live in Parkview next year. She works as an usher and in the box office at the Stage, and she gets out of work at 8 p.m. every Saturday. She then waits for the bus to College Place until 8:43 p.m., then walks up the stairs to Day Hall. 

 

‘It’s just more convenient, and it means less transportation time,’ she said about moving to Parkview.

Many drama students acknowledge a separate drama community, as well as the positives and negatives that come with it.

 

Ultimately, it’s up to the students to decide if being closer to the Complex is worth further removal from Main Campus, Zito said. In his time leading the department, he’s heard a range of opinions and concerns on the amount of time drama students spend at the Complex and away from Main Campus. 

 

‘There are some people who concentrate their life here in the department by active choice,’ he said. ‘There are people who end up getting their life concentrated here and don’t ever develop a successful strategy for expanding their awareness in other directions.’ 

 

Some students, he said, do branch out to Main Campus by joining sororities and fraternities, a cappella groups or other organizations. As chair, he actively works to help students manage their time between the Complex and Main Campus in a way that works best for them.

 

Zito said he has discussed these concerns with Lucinda Havenhand, chair of the design department, and Ann Clarke, dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Havenhand declined to comment for The Daily Orange. Clarke did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

 

For most students, the intensity of the program was something they were aware of and ready for when they chose to come to SU. The drama department offers a conservatory-style program within a larger university community. This gives students the opportunity to take academic classes and minor if they choose, rather than focusing purely on drama.  

 

‘I kind of knew, going into this major, that it was going to be a lot of time spent with the same people for all four years in the same setting,’ said Olivia Gjurich, a sophomore musical theater major. 

 

But because of the Complex’s location off campus, it sometimes makes it hard for the students to get a glimpse of the greater university community. David Siciliano, a sophomore musical theater major, said he tried to rush a fraternity, but had to drop out because he didn’t have enough time. 

 

‘I would like to get connected more to campus because I kind of get tunnel vision,’ he said. ‘But the problem is I love the work, but what ends up happening is we work ourselves to the bone.’

 

Shane Goldbaum-Unger, a junior stage management major, said he got his first taste of concentrating his life in the department in the first few weeks of his freshman year. That year, Goldbaum-Unger was assigned as a soundboard operator for the first musical of the year, at the end of September. He would spend all day in class – he was taking 19 credits – then go to rehearsal from 6 to 11 p.m. Aside from a quick run back to the dorm for food if he had time, he was always at the Complex. 

 

‘Here it is, beginning of my freshman year, and I’m spending more time at the theater than with people on my floor,’ he said. 

 

He remembers his roommate and others on his floor not understanding that he had class and rehearsals on Saturdays, something most college freshmen will never experience, he said.

 

Aside from the pure amount of time spent at the Complex due to classes and homework, many upperclassmen choose to live in the off-campus area right around it. The apartments directly across from the Stage, above Harvey’s Pharmacy, is almost completely filled with drama students. 

 

Many sophomore students in the drama department choose to live in the Brewster/Boland/Brockway Complex or on South Campus. For B/B/B, the appeal is the proximity to the Stage; and for South Campus, it’s all about having a kitchen. Given the limited break some students have between classes, one of the biggest annoyances of the Complex’s location is the distance from a dining hall. If students have an hour break from class, they still don’t have enough time to make the trip to B/B/B, sit down for a meal and make it back to class on time. 

 

There will be microwaves in student rooms at Parkview. But students who plan to live there are encouraged to get an off-campus meal plan or an SU meal plan, although nothing is required, Simmons said. The cooking facilities currently in the basement will be demolished by August, said Rob Benneti, general manager of the Parkview Hotel.

 

Overall, students say the disconnect stems from two places – the sheer amount of work and time required by the drama program and the Complex’s location off campus. The location seems to be the larger problem, many students said. 

 

‘When I go to campus, it’s foreign to me, and I don’t feel like I’m having a normal college experience,’ said Dawn Rother, a junior musical theater major.

 

Jason Marx, a first-year senior acting major, transferred into the drama department after two years as an English major. He said he can talk to freshmen or sophomores about any room in the Complex, or any building around it, but if he mentions a Main Campus hub like People’s Place, they have no idea what he’s talking about.  

 

There’s a sense of a ‘bucket list,’ Marx said, of typical SU things that drama students feel they need to do before leaving campus – go to a basketball game, a football game and the bars on Marshall Street. Even when it comes to partying, the students stay around the Complex – it doesn’t seem necessary to walk to Chuck’s Cafe or any of the other bars, he said. 

 

The one thing many students said they wish for is more collaboration between the drama department and other departments on campus. Some students act in other student films from the television, radio and film department. But aside from that, they feel not enough students even know about what they do down at the Complex, said Aisling Halpin, a junior musical theater major. It would be nice to see more shows promoted to the SU community like ‘Rent’ was at the beginning of the semester, she said.

 

But as most students say, the disconnect created by location and workload isn’t necessarily a bad thing. From the countless hours spent exercising and warming up for a performance to the late nights and Saturday morning practices – when you love what you do, they say, that’s all that matters.

 

kronayne@syr.edu