Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Where are you located?
Click here for a map and directions.
Q: When does the Royden B. Davis S.J. Performing Arts Center open?
The Royden B. Davis S.J. Performing Arts Center opened in Fall 2005.
Q: What kind of performance does the Davis PAC present?
The Davis PAC is designed for theater performance. It is well-suited to musical theater, spoken word performance, multimedia productions, installations, and dance, as well.
We will stage all levels of production, from play-readings to workshop stagings, open rehearsals to fully-realized productions. In addition to presenting performance, the Davis PAC will also present masterclasses, guest lectures by artists and performance scholars, panel discussions linked to creative work, and lobby displays (of dramaturgy, design, and archives). On a periodic basis, the Davis will host filmviewings.
Designed to support and strengthen the Theater Program, and its development of innovative, interdisciplinary degree programs that integrate creative and scholarly work, the Davis PAC provides an extraordinary laboratory for research and liberal arts learning. It also is designed to host classes and special events that use theater and performance to engage a range of disciplines, from Classics to French, English to Spanish/Portugese, Arabic Studies to Film Studies
Q: How large is the theatre in the Davis, and what is special about it?
There are two theatres in the Davis Performing Arts Center„the Gonda Theatre and the Devine Studio Theatre.
The Gonda Theatre, endowed by the Gonda Family Foundation, is a modified proscenium stage with a seating capacity of up to 230 people. Its highlights are a state of the art fly system (for set pieces and special effects); a trap door; an orchestra pit for musicals (which when raised to stage level can create a slight thrust configuration); extensive backstage areas; and excellent multimedia equipment for performances that mix sound and light technology with live performance.
The Devine Studio Theatre, endowed by the family of Brian K. Devine (C'63), typically seats 100 people per performance. This intimate space brings extraordinary flexibility to the Davis, allowing audience and performance areas to be re-configured to suit the specific demands of each performance. State of the art lighting and sound systems can move throughout the space, as well, making this a perfect space for chamber theatre, poetry performances, and experimental stagings.
Q: Why isn't the Davis Performing Arts Center designed to also present orchestral and chamber vocal music?
Theater and Music performance require very different acoustic designs and architectural choices, which is why they are rarely staged in the same venues. This space was designed to serve theater, performance„spoken word, multimedia performance, and to a good degree, dance. (See history).
Q: When is the Opening Celebration of the Davis PAC?
The Davis opening celebration will be held in mid-November, hosted by President Jack DiGoia, College Dean Jane McAuliffe, and OAUR, as planned in concert with Davis Artistic Director Maya Roth. We will honor our community of donors, Father Davis, and the interdisciplinary members of our community who have helped to imagine this step into the future for the Liberal Arts and Performance at Georgetown. Students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the Georgetown neighborhood are welcome to join us in this dedication ceremony, as well as for our ongoing waves of celebration throughout the opening season.
Q: What kind of work will the Davis showcase for the public?
A range of theatrical genres and styles, from classics to satires to new work. The programming will share an intelligence and artistic imagination: smart theater for smart artists and audiences.
Look for the programming to include theater, dance, multimedia performance, musicals, spoken word, solo performance, masterclasses, and performance installations.
Q: How are events programmed in the Davis PAC?
The Artistic Director of the Davis Performing Arts Center, Assistant Professor Maya Roth, programs the resident season for the Davis. The Theater Program Seasons are designed to engage creative range, intellectual engagement, and collaboration.
Proposals for performance sponsored by units other than the Theater Program, such as interdisciplinary performance sponsored by the English Department, are considered by a Programming Board. Guidelines will be posted on our 'proposals' page. Proposals must be submitted by June 1 for priority consideration in the following academic year.
Q: How does the Davis serve the full Georgetown community?
- Through programming seasons which engage the ideas, concerns, and talents of students, faculty, alumni, and friends from throughout Georgetown community.
- By hosting classes not only for the Theater Program, but also for other academic units in the College which use performance as part of their methodology.
- By presenting special performance events initiated by a diversity of units across the campus.
- By inviting our Georgetown neighbors and alumni to attend our productions, participate in public workshop forums, and volunteer in the public and backstage work of the Davis.
Q: How are performers chosen for productions in the Davis Center?
Most productions are cast through open audition, welcome to interested members of the extended Georgetown community. Some projects in the Theater Season are linked to the degree program, and provide intensive mentoring for our most advanced students' work in the discipline, linked to specific classes. All casting is multicultural. Some productions offer non-traditional (e.g., cross-gender) casting, as well.
At least 80% of performers in the Theater Season are Georgetown students, however alumni, staff, faculty, and members of the DC community are welcome to audition for most of our productions, as well. Audition notices are posted regularly on the PPA Website under the heading Perform!
Q: How many people will benefit from the Davis Performing Arts Center?
We estimate at least 2500 people from the Georgetown University community will participate as students, faculty/staff, artists, and/or audiences in the Davis PAC's first season. Already more than 350 students take Theater Program courses each year or participate in our academic production season. More than 1000 people attend our productions (based on 2004-05 numbers). Since the Davis has more performance space, and will feature not only the work of the Theater Program, but also other classes and sponsors that actively incorporate live performance in theater, dance and/or spoken word from within the GU community, we are confident the Davis will reach more than 2500 members of the extended Georgetown community in our first year.
Q: What is the focus of the Theater Program, the Davis PAC's resident users?
The Theater program emphasizes creative and interdisciplinary learning through theater, performance studies, and scholarship. We foreground the integration of critical and creative research, the ways that theater provides a distinctively embodied, collaborative, and integrative methodology for liberal arts study. Ours is not a conservatory program; for those students who want to pursue theater professionally, we do provide advanced mentoring and professional contact. Meanwhile, we focus on the research to performance model, foregrounding the ways that this interdisciplinary art-form helps students, artists and audiences to engage in social and spiritual inquiry through imagination and analysis, both.
The Theater Program offers special strengths in socially-engaged performance, ensemble theater, new work development, and theater of diversity.
Q: Will the Davis host guest artists?
Yes. The Davis Performing Arts Center will host guest artists„performers, directors, designers, conductors, dancers, choreographers„for guest residencies. Sometimes professional artists will lead masterclasses, sometimes they will mentor students involved in production, sometimes the artists will teach courses, and sometimes they will participate directly in a production. The Program in Performing Arts chooses guest artists are who truly care about students' learning, and help to mentor it. The frequency of residencies depends on donor philanthropy, grants, and university funding, of course; always, student learning and participation will stay central.
In recent years, the Theater Program has hosted guest artists such as Cliff Osmond (film and stage actor, director and screenwriter, founder of the Acting Center in LA); Paul Levi (NY composer and musical director); Irina Tsikivili (Resident Choreographer of Synetic Theatre); Barney O'Hanlon (SITI Company Member); George Grant (of Shakespeare Theatre); Nora Armani (Armenian-Egyptian-American Actor/Writer); Karin Abromaitis (fight choreographer and clown); Shenandoah Shakespeare Company; and Motti Lerner (Israeli Playwright), among others. We look forward to the higher level of performance research and public visibility the Davis will enable for future guest artists.
Q: Is the Davis a venue for touring productions?
Only as an exception. Washington DC has a range of venues which already sponsor touring productions, including: the National Theatre (run by emeritus Georgetown Professor Donn B. Murphy); the Kennedy Center; Lisner Auditorium, Strathmore Music Center, and the new Atlas Theatre. Georgetown students enjoy discounted rates to most major arts venues, and benefit from special deals coordinated through the Program and Performing Arts for some professional performances.
If a touring production is sponsored by a unit on campus as educationally significant to Georgetown students, draws interdisciplinary interest, and requires quite minimal rehearsal, it may be proposed by a member of the Georgetown community for consideration by the Artistic Advisory Board. Such events will be hosted only during gaps in the very active Davis PAC Season.
Recent special events that have toured to Georgetown in this way include: South African Singers: Performing Justice (co-sponsored by the English Department, the Theater Program, the Humanities Initiative, and the Lannan Seminar, among others;) A Whole Lottye Lenya (co-sponsored by the Theater Program with Friday Music); On the Couch With Nora Armani (co-sponsored by the Theater Program with the Humanities Initiative, the Center for Contemporary Arabic Studies, and the French Department); Precious Stones (by GU Alum Jamil Khoury, co-sponsored by the Theater Program, Diversity Action Council, Women's Center, and SAC), and Chocolate In Heat (co-sponsored by the Center for Christian and Muslim Understanding, Arabic Anti-Defamation, and the Theater Program), for example.
Q: Can I volunteer at the Davis Center...(for a free ticket)?
Yes. There will be many opportunities to volunteer in the Davis Performing Arts Center. We welcome volunteer ushers, tailors/seamstresses, box office assistants, backstage technicians, actors, graphic artists, carpenters, and more. This is the best way to learn more about theater and performing arts„and get a free ticket to performance. See our 'getting involved' pages .
Q: Will Poulton and Walsh Black Box remain performance venues for student club performance?
Yes. Poulton Hall will remain the home performance hub for Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society. Walsh Black Box will remain a performance space, largely dedicated to theater and dance performances by student clubs, and a classroom, like Village C, during the day.
The Davis Center was designed to add to, not replace, existing performance classrooms and venues, which are currently glutted by the high interest in theater, performance studies, and dance at GU. Before the Davis was built, there was not space for workshop showings of class performances, nor the time/space resources for growing a degree program in Theater because more than five departments use performance workshops in teaching their disciplines.
Q: Since the Davis Center is an academic building, will it benefit co-curricular student club performance at GU?
Yes, to varying degrees. All PPA student performance groups in dance and theater (Black Theatre Ensemble, Nomadic Theatre, Georgetown Players, GU Dance Company, Black Movements Dance Theatre, Ballet Folklorico de Mexicano, and Ritmo y Sabor) will benefit from the Davis Center, indirectly and directly, as will some other organizations which use performance as a focus (eg. Groove Theory, Ballroom Dance, South Asian Performance Society.) By adding more rehearsal and performance venues dedicated to the academic programs that focus on theater and performance, co-curricular groups will gain more regular access to currently existing performance laboratory spaces. Moreover, all groups may use the scene and costume shops, supervised by professional staff, during dedicated hours. After priority rehearsal space is provided to those students (and faculty) working in academic/degree programs, openings will be released for student club users, within security guidelines. Finally, some co-curricular groups will have the chance to perform in the Davis Center, following proposal; as a general rule, the performances will be faculty-directed, whether linked to a collaboration with the Theater Program or part of the repertory of faculty-directed Dance Companies. (In this way, the Davis keeps its focus on the development of academic programs in performing arts, and professional development.)
Q: Who is the Davis PAC for?
The Davis PAC hails an expanding circle of constitutents in the extended Georgetown community, involving more than 2500 people each year.
- Importantly, the Davis serves the Theater Program, its resident users. This program intensively serves more than 350 students who take our classes and participate in Theater Season productions each year. In addition to serving these students, who hail from a range of schools at GU, the Davis supports the the performance research of our accomplished faculty and advanced students. Because of the public nature of our research, each Theater Season production, always somehow linked to the curricular program, brings hundreds of audience members from throughout the extended Georgetown community.
- Our programming is designed to engage the public interest through staging plays, performances and dances that engage the humanities, social sciences, and, when possible, the sciences. Like all good theater, our work is interdisciplinary in reach, engaging the world. Our audiences come not only from the campus, but beyond„including the Georgetown neighborhood. More than 1500 people have attended Theater Program public events in 2004-05, making us confident the Davis will attract even more people. (The Program in Performing Arts, involving Music and Dance, has more than 2000 active participants in classes and performance.)
- The Davis PAC serves the interdisciplinary academic community in other ways, as well. Faculty from other departments who use theater and performance to engage their content may stage class showings in the Davis, teach classes in select classrooms shared by several units (as well as WBB and Village C), and (co)sponsor special events and/or productions in the Davis Season. Thus the Davis supports work directly linked to teaching and research in programs such as Classics, English, French, Spanish/Portugese.
- Always, the Davis serves the full university community by providing a site of public exchange and collaboration. If theater explores the human condition, imagines alternate visions, and engages diverse historical and cultural traditions, then the Davis Performing Arts Center enhances the University's ability to engage reflective dialogue in cross-disciplinary ways„and helps us to imagine better tomorrows, enhanced by creative, diversified community.
