Curtain Up

Today we were delighted to be part of a very special, very Naperville, event - the dedication of the new Wentz Concert Hall at North Central College. Come with us as we are among the first to look inside the impressive new building.
What is perhaps most surprising is not that a little town like Naperville can now boast a world class concert hall, but that the entire $30 million cost was raised entirely by local benefactors. It's typical of Naperville's 'can do' attitude that it could pull off an ambitious project like this.

Here I am talking to Brian Lynch, North Central's Fine Arts Director.

The building is deceptively spacious on the inside compared with how it appears on the outside.

It boasts a 605 seat concert hall, a black box theatre, an art gallery and rehearsal space and facilities for its students. It will be used for a mixture of college and world class performances.
Backstage are various classrooms and studios. As you can see, the staff are drawn from the best showbiz families.

Don't worry, there aren't any closet Nazis in Naperville as far as I know. This is the wardrobe for the students' latest production - The Diary of Anne Frank.

The building was formally dedicated in a moving ceremony recognising all those who helped to achieve the college's dream.

Chief benefactors were presented with medals, like this one received by Rita Harvard

Here's the auditorium before the dedication.

The college's concert choir.

And finally, the ribbon cutting ceremony. In a theatrical statement, the ribbon was pulled across the top of the auditorium by two students as trumpeters played a fanfare. It was lowered so it could be officially cut by Dr Myron Wentz, whom the hall is named after.
Let me let you into a little insider secret. Although the giant scissors looked great, they couldn't actually cut, so Brian Lynch snipped away while Dr Wentz held them up for effect.

Although the Wentz is brand new, it is not replacing the other theatres that the college has in Naperville. So although we have this magnificent modern building, just around the corner is Pfeiffer Hall, a very traditional 2,000 seat theatre built in 1926 with only two female toilets! As someone said, the Wentz is a Pfeiffer Hall for the 21st century.