In our State-of-the-Art Spaces series, we’ll show you academic spaces all over campus that boast unique features and technology that enhance learning, allow students to engage in hands-on experiences, and more. Get an inside look at Colorado State’s state-of-the-art spaces now.
Colorado State’s University Center for the Arts houses a plethora of dance studios, musician practice rooms and rehearsal halls, and stunning performance halls, used primarily by students of the The School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. Among the performance spaces, you’ll find CSU’s University Theatre, a tech-forward space with a unique design that’s perfectly suited to full audience immersion.
The University Theatre is a thrust-style theatre, which means that the audience is seated on three sides of the main stage. The steep, three-sided seating design lends itself to intimate staging of productions where the audience is immersed in the action, as opposed to a traditional, proscenium theatre where the audience typically sits farther from the stage on a slight slope. The theatre has some removable rows of seating, allowing flexible design choices for space and stage shape, as well as audience proximity.
The University Theatre houses some of the most up-to-date theatre lighting and sound technology available. CSU’s Theatre Department maintains an ever-evolving inventory of theatre lighting instruments and lighting consoles, including conventional lighting fixtures, LED fixtures, Intelligent fixtures, and various brands and styles of lighting consoles, which provide students exposure and understanding of the equipment they will likely come across following graduation.
Technology also includes a DiGiCo digital sound console with surround sound speakers, 24 wireless microphones, a wired and wireless intercom system, and all conventional sound equipment. The theatre is equipped with chain motors for the rigging and flying of actors, personal lifts and scissor lifts to safely work at height, along with four motorized line sets (rigging).
Want to see it in person? Sign up to take a tour with the College of Liberal Arts.
- Who studies here: Theatre majors and minors primarily use the space for rehearsals and performances. Students from across campus who are not theatre majors are welcome to audition for plays and work on production crews. Non-performing arts majors also hold work-study positions in the Box Office, Events, and in the Shops, which puts them in direct contact with the University Theatre.
- Some classes that meet here: Theatre Practicums, Stage Design, Lighting Design, and Sound Design.
- Built: October 2005
- Location: In Colorado State’s University Center for the Arts. See map.
