A theater district grows in the Garden State

$50M arts center to sprout up in NJ amid serious funding cuts

New Jersey may not be blessed with the most thriving performing arts community in the country, but at least one theater district in the Garden State is getting a huge facelift.

 

New Brunswick is revamping its much-touted theater district with the construction of a $275 million, 600,000-square-foot building, which will be anchored by a new $50 million performing arts center.

 

The project is being developed by the New Brunswick Development Corp. (Devco), and is aiming to boost arts-related revenue in the city. Dubbed the “new” New Brunswick Cultural Center (NBCC), the structure will also include offices and a condominium tower, which are expected to bring between 750 and 1,000 new jobs and 200 residents to the area.

 

 

The performing arts center will be built on the current sites of the George Street Playhouse and Crossroads Theatre. Both companies, along with the American Repertory Ballet and Rutger’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, will share the new space. The nearby State Theatre will also be upgraded with an interior galleria connecting it to the arts center.

 

The center will provide bigger spaces for rehearsals and performances, and will help increase the revenue brought in by the resident companies.

 

Chris Paladino, president of Devco, told NJBiz that the theater district’s redevelopment is necessary for the continued survival of the area’s arts. He added that the facilities where the companies currently reside are impeding them from drawing larger audiences, limiting the amount of performances and holding up other organizations from using the stage.

 

The project comes at a key time for New Jersey, just as arts programs throughout the state are facing serious funding cuts. The New Jersey State Council on the Arts is currently facing a proposed $5.9 million reduction in funds to local arts organizations.

 

While organizations across the state work to restore the funding, Gov. Jon Corzine believes that the cuts are necessary for New Jersey, which remains some $32 billion in debt. -Jennifer DeYoung

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Artists’ rights go up in smoke

Colorado’s on-stage smoking ban a real drag, free-speech activists say

 

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, just not on a Colorado stage.

 

Last week, a Colorado appeals court ruled that the state’s two-year-old indoor smoking ban includes smoking by performers on stage. The ruling, condemned by arts activists on the grounds of free expression, contends that theater artists are in the business of make believe, and that a smoking ban is akin to a ban on illegal drug use or violence. “Smoking, by itself, is not sufficiently expressive to qualify for First Amendment protection,” the court added.

 

In New York, the Clean Indoor Air Act has banned actors from smoking tobacco on stage since 2003. However, herbal cigarettes, which create virtually the same effect, are permitted. The Colorado ruling makes no distinction between the two, and lawmakers there rejected an exemption that would have allowed the use of herbals on stage.

 

So what of plays set in the 1940s and ‘50s, when chain smoking was considered as American as apple pie? For now, Coloradans will have to consider special effects, such as dry ice, to create the illusion of cigarette smoke. Meanwhile, A. Bruce Jones, a lawyer for the three Colorado theaters that appealed the smoking ban, told the New York Times that he will likely take the fight all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court.

 

Colorado’s ban is now the strictest in the nation, according to lawyer Mike Freiberg of the Tobacco Law Center at St. Paul’s William Mitchell College of Law. It’s impossible to tell whether or not the ruling will trickle into the minds of anti-smoking activists in other states, but New York theater artists might want to rev up their dry ice machines just in case. -Christopher Zara

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