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USITT Recognizes Chapman University's Musco Center for the Arts with a 2017 Merit Award

November 8, 2016
The United State Institute of Theatre Technology (USITT) recognized Chapman University’s new Musco Center for the Arts with a 2017 Merit Award. The 1,050-seat hall handily transforms from a proscenium theater to a concert hall, with a 55-ton acoustical shell that flies to storage and two orchestra lifts that can create a Broadway pit, large opera pit or stage extension for concert mode. The hall’s complex acoustic demands are met by the large copper colored acanthus leaf-shaped panels that precisely articulate and reflect sound, while establishing the visual motif of a hidden garden, complete with “fire fly” lights on the fasciae. The annual awards program, held this year in St. Louis, Missouri, honors excellence in architecture for theater and performance spaces.