After an extensive overhaul, City Center is back open in time for Fall for Dance
For the dance world, there can be no better news than the return to action of a newly renovated City Center, for many decades a welcoming home to dance companies. From providing New York City Ballet with its first home in 1948, to launching the remarkably popular (just try and snag a ticket) Fall for Dance Festival in 2004, City Center has been a regular destination for dance-lovers.
A rendering of the newly renovated exterior of City Center. ©Ennead Architects
But the theater was showing its age, and Arlene Shuler, president and CEO of City Center, has spearheaded an overhaul that remedies some of the theater’s weaker points (too many seats with unsatisfactory sightlines) and boldly repositions it as a premier, 21st-century performing arts venue. Following an abbreviated 2010–11 season that ended in late March, intensive work began on everything from the 55th Street façade to the 2,000-plus seats to the restrooms.
The result—a far more beautiful, comfortable and audience-friendly theater—will welcome the usual capacity crowds when Fall for Dance opens Oct. 27. “It’s much more spacious and gracious—and beautiful,” Shuler noted with pride. “There’s definitely a sense of space and openness—not only in the lobby, but throughout the theater.”
City Center now has a gleaming (and heated) marquee, with signage visible from both Sixth and Seventh avenues. Gone are the utilitarian green awnings, and with their removal one can appreciate the gracious beauty and finer details of the theater’s elaborate façade. Duncan Hazard, the partner in charge for Ennead Architects, the firm that designed the renovation, noted that in researching original construction documents, they found a reference to an “anchor for future marquee,” so someone long ago foresaw what is now finally in place.
Much research has gone into the renovation, since there is so much history to City Center, and while the goal was to modernize it for 2011, considerable attention was paid to original designs that have been either restored or complemented, often with painstaking detail. The renovated lobby and the glorious mezzanine promenade now boast much of the original colorful, intricate designs that graced the building when it first opened in 1923 as a Shriners meeting hall. (Twenty years later, Mayor LaGuardia dedicated it as City Center, intended as a “people’s theater.”)
The main lobby has a refurbished box office on the left; on the right, a will-call ticket area transforms into Joe’s Bar for intermission snacks and drinks. The lobby’s ceiling showcases the restored terra cotta tile work, with new tile work on the side walls created to match those unique designs. “Lobby space was always a City Center issue, and we’ve done all we can to maximize it,” Hazard explained during a recent walk-through.
What has really been maximized is the reconfigured inner lobby area, which will be almost unrecognizable to those long familiar with its duller earlier incarnation. It is far brighter and more open. The stairs into the orchestra seating have been moved back, and two rear rows of orchestra seats were removed, creating welcome new space. The formerly chunky square pillars are now octagonal. A video display wall greets theatergoers as soon as they enter, and its six bands of plasma screens will screen varied video content, starting with three installations curated by the New Museum.
Everywhere in the theater there are elegant new design details—even the patterning on the video wall echoes that on the auditorium’s ceiling. The main overall change has been to restore the polychromatic glory of the original designs, which had been carelessly painted over through the decades. “For people who have been going to City Center for many years and are used to a white theater, the interior will come as a huge surprise,” said Shuler—whose personal association with the theater dates back to her time as a Joffrey Ballet dancer in the 1960s.
The vastly changed auditorium itself is a wonder to behold. From the teal seats—once a measly 17 inches wide, these new ones are up to 22 inches—that are newly staggered to provide improved sightlines, to the elaborate design surrounding the proscenium, it feels new and vibrant, even while it resonates with its rich history.
The seating capacity is now 2,250, about 500 fewer than before. But Shuler admits that those seats—many of them in the extreme rear and sides of the mezzanine—will not be missed. “Most of the seats we got rid of are ones people didn’t want to sit in. We lost some seats in the orchestra, but it now has a larger center section. The grand tier and mezzanine are spectacular.” A trial perch in the center grand tier confirms how intimate and embracing a perspective it offers.
City Center has a very busy year on tap, both on and off stage. Fall for Dance, always an exhilarating 10-day stretch that draws veteran dance aficionados as well as newcomers, sold out all its $10 tickets in five hours, but you can always line up for cancellations. More dance follows with American Ballet Theater (Nov. 8–13), then the annual five-week Alvin Ailey season, opening Nov. 30. In between comes Cotton Club Parade, a production celebrating Duke Ellington that inaugurates a partnership between City Center Encores! and Jazz at Lincoln Center. That’s just the first two months, with three Encores! productions and much more to follow.
Fall for Dance Festival
Oct. 27–Nov. 6, City Center, 131 W. 55th St. (betw 6th & 7th Aves.), www.nycitycenter.org; $10.
