The Playhouse has been shut down for the past 2 years without a clear plan to reopen.

The RPI Playhouse flooded on February 4th, 2023, after a pipe burst during a winter freeze. Since then, the Playhouse — a vital center of student creativity, leadership, and community at RPI — has remained closed. The members of the RPI Players have since had to perform on the road without the resources and security a permanent residence provides.

In the months following the flood, several evaluations and assessments of the building were conducted. The estimates for repairs formed from these evaluations have varied wildly (all are referenced in this report from Student Senate):

• The cost to repair the water damage is estimated to be around $112,000.
• A later architectural review of the building found fire safety deficiencies that are estimated to cost $500,000 to repair, bringing the estimate to around $600,000.
• The most recent estimate is $2.5 million.

It’s not clear what the exact scope of work is for each estimate, or what made the price quadruple between the second and last estimates. Even if it was clear, no plan has been communicated to find sources for this money – let alone do the work needed to reopen the Playhouse.

The Playhouse provided opportunities and support to Players, performing arts groups, and the school that each group is suffering without.

The Players have been suffering without this critical resource, even with access to outside venues. The strain of finding a place to perform, negotiating times of use, paying for the allotted time, loading in, and loading out - all on top of the already intense burden of doing theater while attending classes - eventually culminated in the Players sending out a cry for help. (The Players then wrote an apology document that corrects inaccuracies in the original plea.)

It's not only the Players that are hurting, either. The Playhouse was used by more than the Players:

• Dance Club held their fall performances in the Playhouse in 2021 and 2022.
• RMA held their fall 2022 small groups concert in the Playhouse.
• RA training for the 2022-2023 academic year was held in the Playhouse.
• Some a cappella groups (Duly Noted, the Rensselyrics, and others) used the Playhouse for their NRB performances.
• CASA held their 2023 Lunar New Year celebration in the Playhouse. (This was the last event before the Playhouse flooded.)

With the Playhouse’s closure, these events and more are moving to venues that are either less capable, more expensive, or far away from campus. It’s not healthy for these clubs or their audiences to have to keep doing this.

At the campus level, losing this venue means losing the technical and artistic opportunities that the Playhouse afforded for everyone. If you wanted to learn computer networking and get experience managing a network, you could've become a systems administrator for the Playhouse. If you wanted to practice what you learned in your architecture classes, you could've designed the set for a show. If you wanted to experiment with complex lighting designs or spatial audio setups, you could've done both at the same time. There have been instances of class projects being work that was done in the Playhouse. And that’s before even mentioning how the Playhouse helped people learn the communication and leadership skills that are necessary for succeeding in any kind of job - something that many alumni have attested to. All of these opportunities are lost without the Playhouse or an equivalent space.

There's a reason the Playhouse is showcased on every tour of RPI that prospective students take. It matters to the student experience. It's a boon for the students, both professionally and recreationally. It's painful to see what RPI is losing without the Playhouse or any building like it.

The best and easiest solution to these problems is to do what is needed to repair the Playhouse.

The Union and Institute are aware of some of these problems and have proposed some solutions:

• The Union is building a small performance space in its lower floor and has suggested that the Players could use it. While this could work for small showcases, the proposed space isn’t big enough to be used for anything beyond that, and almost-certainly wouldn’t have the same technical capabilities that the Playhouse had. Even if it were big enough, the fact that the Players won't have a home there means that the constraints and strain that come with having to load in and load out a show are still present.
• Players has been renting Russell Sage College’s theater and other venues to be able to put on shows. A solution that's been proposed is to just keep up the relationship as it’s going now. Again, though, the Players are still forced to load in and load out, and the student body as a whole is missing the opportunities that come with a Playhouse. That's before mentioning the rental cost - at Russell Sage College, it costs $3,750 a week for the main theater and $1,750 a week for the smaller theater - which for Players' usage (between 2 and 3 weeks) has totaled up to almost $8,000 for a single show before.

Neither of these solve the problems that Players, clubs in general, or the school are facing without the Playhouse. The only viable solutions to these problems are to repair the Playhouse or provide an equivalent space - and it’s unlikely that such a space already exists, or that one could be made while costing less than repairing the Playhouse.

Our Vision

As the Friends of the Playhouse, our vision is to facilitate the restoration and revitalization of the Playhouse, or at least an equivalent space for the performing arts. We wish to see the RPI Players as permanent artists-in-residence on campus, creating a student-led hub where members can gain hands-on experience in managing, producing, and performing live theater and events without the added strain, uncertainty, and constraints that come with not knowing where the next performance will happen. We believe that the Playhouse is not just a building; it is the center of a community. Restoring it is an investment not only in infrastructure, but also in the technical freedom and interdisciplinary spirit that attracts so many to RPI.