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 (some are referenced in this Student Senate report):

• 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.
• A seemingly separate review done by the Union and Campus Planning staff estimated that the cost of repairing the building and bringing it up to code is just under $2 million.
• The most recent estimate is $2.5 million.

It’s not clear how different estimates are defining “repairs.” Even if the scope of repairs was defined, 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 the help of outside venues. The stress of finding a place to perform, negotiating times of use, 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 letter.)

It's not only the Players that are missing out, either. The Playhouse was open to 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.
• 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 clubs to have to keep doing this. Especially not when the Players were more than willing to help other clubs put on shows in the Playhouse.

At the campus level, losing this venue means losing the technical and artistic opportunities that the Playhouse affords for everyone. Want to learn computer networking? Become a systems administrator for the Playhouse. Want to practice what you learned in your architecture classes? Design the set for a show. Want to experiment with complex lighting designs or spatial audio setups? You can do 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 was a social, cross-discipline hub that let 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 theater in its lower floor. While this could work for other clubs, the proposed theater isn’t big enough to be used for anything beyond a small showcase, and almost certainly wouldn’t have the technical capabilities that give students real experience. Even if it were big enough, the constraints and stress on Players that come with having to load in and load out a show are still present.
• Players has been renting Russell Sage College’s theater 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 writ large is missing the opportunities that come with a Playhouse.

Neither of these solve the problems that Players, some clubs, 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 building already exists, or that one could be made while costing less than repairing the Playhouse.

Our Vision and Goal

As the Friends of the Playhouse, our vision is to facilitate the restoration and revitalization of the Playhouse, or at least an equivalent space. We wish to see the RPI Players as permanent artists-in-residence on campus, creating a student-led space where members can gain hands-on experience in managing, producing, and performing live theater without the added stress, 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.

Towards that end, our goal is to show that there's community interest in working with Institute Advancement to reopen the Playhouse as a place for students to enrich their experiences at RPI.