This new project has just opened its doors earlier this month. Two years in the making its is being inaugurated during Kent State University’s centennial year, the Roe Green Center designed by Holzman Moss Bottino Architecture (HMBA) incorporates both renovation and new construction of the Music and Speech Building built in 1960.

It features a striking new glass lobby entrance, a 200-seat black box experimental theatre, and brings the Theatre and Dance departments together under the same roof for the first time with three, new state-of-the art dance studios.

"We are thrilled to have everyone in the same building and we're excited by the creative possibilities for collaborations by theatre, dance and music students." said Cynthia Stillings, director, School of Theatre and Dance.

In order to better prepare undergraduate and graduate students for careers in the performing arts, the project converts the music library into an expanded performing arts library, creates a new costume shop, and renovates and upgrades the computer, costume technology, lighting, props and crafts, and welding labs; recording studio; scene shop, along with offices and classrooms.



The lobby addition creates a new front door for the arts by providing a single entryway for six departments and four performance spaces. The project maximizes the amount of new space possible within budget constraints to meet expanded needs for new performance, instruction, research, and support spaces.

According to Michael Bruder, Kent State's director of design and construction, Office of the University Architect, "The architects designed a fantastic addition that provides a dynamic transforming of the building. The design of the new lobby and black box theatre not only improves student learning opportunities and the patron experience, the architecture reflects the caliber and creativity of the works being prepared and performed by our theatre and dance students and faculty."Roe Green Center for the School of Theatre and Dance Photograph



Commenting on the scope of the project, Malcolm Holzman, FAIA, and partner of Holzman Moss Bottino Architecture adds, “Our greatest challenge was to create a unique, dramatic identity for the performing arts at Kent with the addition of the Roe Green Center. Reflecting practical design solutions while anticipating future expansion needs, the Center represents a dynamic, collaborative, flexible, interdisciplinary, learning environment that responds to both changing technology and teaching methods while promoting greater formal and informal interaction between faculty and students as integral to the learning process.”