The Department of Theatre Arts is located in a modern, air conditioned facility — one of the finest, best-equipped theatre training facilities in the country. It includes theatres, rehearsal rooms, scenic and costume shops, classrooms, dance studios, property, lighting, sound laboratories, box office, digital imaging studio, green room and galleries.
Some of the main performance features of the facility include: The Studio Theatre, seating one hundred seventy-five to two hundred thirty-seven, with flexible stage to accommodate proscenium, thrust, and arena forms, and equipped with hydraulic jacks for changing basic stage forms, a compound rigging system, a flexible lighting control system, highest quality sound control, multi-channel production conference phone system; Players Theatre, seating ninety and equipped with full lighting system, high-quality sound control, three-channel production conference phone system; Creative Drama Laboratory, seating sixty (with observation seating); two acting laboratories, each seating approximately sixty and equipped with basic sound and lighting controls and modular unistrut ceiling for drapes or scenic panels; lecture/performance space, seating thirty-five on permanent risers for formal presentation of new play scripts.
The Royal Theatre aboard the Queen Mary was converted to an exciting contemporary theatre space for Cal Rep in the summer of 2009. It boasts a superb computerized lighting system featuring the ETC ION lighting control and Vari*Lite automated fixtures, comfortable dressing rooms, and an intimate lobby. It serves as the home for Cal Rep, which occupies it from August through May.
Workshops for production preparation include a scenery studio of approximately five thousand square feet; design laboratory used for stage and costume design classes and project work; costume studio providing over three thousand square feet for cutting, dyeing, sewing, fitting, and assembling costumes for productions; two property preparation rooms; make-up lab; lighting laboratory of approximately one thousand six hundred square feet providing both special instructional areas and production support areas; business management laboratories including ticket offices; and an extensive graphics room.
Extensive library resources are maintained by the department, including the entire library of The Pasadena Playhouse, a collection consisting of approximately 5,400 scripts and books. Also available in the departmental library are more than 30 years of theatrical production slides and over 5,000 slides of theatre history. The large university library has more than two million bibliographic items, and the book collection is supplemented by art prints, slides, recordings, micro-texts and video copy.
A state-of-the-art computer laboratory with laser printing, scanning, digital imaging, and CAD facilities is maintained in the theatre building and is available to all students.
