Cornell's performing arts center will be named the Sheila W. and Richard J. Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts to honor arts patrons and longtime benefactors of the university, President Hunter Rawlings announced at an alumni dinner in New York City, Jan. 24.
The $25 million facility, which sits along scenic Cascadilla Gorge on the border between the Cornell campus and Collegetown, houses the university's primary performance spaces.
"We are delighted that Dick Schwartz has decided to strengthen Cornell's programs in the performing arts still further through his magnificent new commitment," Rawlings said in making the announcement. "With his new support for the performing arts -- and the success we have enjoyed in so many other areas of university life this year -- we have restored the arts to their rightful place in our great university."
The renaming of the performing arts center is in recognition of a gift to Cornell by Richard and Sheila Schwartz. Details of the gift were not disclosed.
A Cornell trustee fellow and member of the University Council, Richard J. Schwartz is president of the Richard J. Schwartz Corp. of New York City. His involvement with the arts is extensive: He was appointed as chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts by New York Gov. George E. Pataki, and he previously served as vice chairman and as a member of the council for many years.
Richard and Sheila Schwartz are patrons of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
Richard Schwartz, a 1960 graduate of Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences, has been an avid supporter of Cornell's Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. He has served as chair of the museum's advisory council and its campaign committee and played a major role in its "Cornell Collects" exhibit, a display of American art from the collections of alumni and friends, in honor of Cornell's 125th anniversary in 1990. In 1992, he endowed the Richard J. Schwartz Director of the Johnson Museum, a position currently held by Franklin Robinson.
Longtime benefactors of the university, the family also has endowed the Richard J. Schwartz Professorship in Social Sciences, held by Isaac Kramnick, and the Richard J. and Sheila W. Schwartz Auditorium in Rockefeller Hall.
Dedicated April 10, 1989, the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts houses the 456-seat proscenium theatre, two small flexible theaters and dance studios. The facility also includes film editing and showing rooms, lighting and sound laboratories, costume-design and scene shops, classrooms, reading and meeting rooms and administrative offices for Cornell's Department of Theatre, Film and Dance. Its innovative design, which features a white marble facade and loggia of redwood and metal beams, was created by James Stirling of Stirling & Wilford Associates of London, winner of the 1981 Pritzker Architectural Prize. His goal was to integrate performance space with teaching space.
"The Schwartz Center is a magnificent facility from which our entire community benefits," said Philip E. Lewis, the Harold Tanner Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "Thanks to the generous support the Schwartzes are providing, the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance will continue to strengthen the outstanding programs it has developed over the past decade. All the arts at Cornell are indebted to Richard Schwartz, not only for his generous financial backing but also for his enlightened leadership and commitment to education in the arts in our state."
Cornell's Department of Theatre, Film and Dance is composed of 22 faculty members. Undergraduate degrees are offered in theater and dance, and 70 students are currently enrolled as theater arts or dance majors. The department offers a concentration in film studies, as well.
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