Sometimes the biggest arts stories aren’t about the art itself, but more about the people and the dreams that help make art happen in a big way. Such is the case at Tennessee State University, where the finishing touches are currently being applied to the brand-new TSU Performing Arts Center, a $9 million, 40,000-square-foot teaching and performance complex that puts TSU at the forefront of the state’s arts venues.

Two years under construction, the PAC stands smack in the middle of the TSU campus on the site of the old Marie Strange Music Hall, the existing structure of which was incorporated into the building plans developed by Tuck Hinton Architects, a leading Nashville firm also responsible for the new Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, the Village at Vanderbilt and the headquarters for Warner Bros. Records. TSU’s PAC was scheduled originally for a Jan. 7 unveiling with the Theater Program’s student production of In the Blood, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’ tough-edged, modern-day adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Last-minute fire-code issues forced the postponement of the show until late March. But members of the Communications Department faculty will begin moving into their new offices by the end of this week, and students in music, theater, radio and television classes will be traversing the center’s hallways soon thereafter.

“The visual and performing arts are an important part of TSU’s heritage,” says Dr. James Hefner, university president since 1991 and the chief administrational overseer of the project. “It’s logical to continue that tradition. Our graduates include the late actor Moses Gunn as well as Oprah Winfrey. And dating back to the late 1940s, TSU has had outstanding jazz and marching bands. This is a multipurpose teaching facility with an edge. It will enhance student performance through its state-of-the-art equipment; it will enhance dance, music and, in particular, theater. I wanted a professional theater [company] on the campus, because it offers students more opportunity to learn the practical aspects of the business.” Hefner is referring to theater manager Barry Scott’s American Negro Playwright Theatre, which has already been in residence at TSU for a few years. That relationship will, of course, continue.

“This is a resource for Nashville as well,” Hefner says. “And it will define us in terms of aesthetics. In state institutions, liberal arts are often not as well defined. But this building makes a statement: 'Let us be about the business of art.’ ”

“It’s exciting to have all these capabilities,” says Communications Dept. instructor Kimberley Lamarque, leading the way through a maze of corridors, stairs and doorways that divide up the three-story PAC’s major features, including a 360-seat theater, a simply cavernous band room and a spacious recital hall. A dazzling glass rotunda is the architectural centerpiece of the classroom and office areas. The PAC is an amazingly versatile facility, wherein each working entity—theater, television, radio and music—can operate separately and simultaneously without acoustically impinging on the others. (The impressive radio and television wing is yet to be completed, as the university awaits an additional $2 million in funding.)

Theater space is at a premium for professional companies in Nashville, and the new TSU theater would be the source of envy for any one of them. Seating capacity can be expanded to 400. The stage rigging features 27 working fly lines for scenery—with plans for expansion to 37—offering designers flexibility for complicated scene changes and more creative set designs. The state-of-the-art lighting system offers a fully conventional light board as well as 24 computerized “intelligent” moving lights and a sophisticated touch-control dimmer system. The theater’s audio system is equally impressive and will lend itself to greater ease in mounting musical productions as well as live concerts. Features include digital and analog recording capabilities and an assisted listening system for the convenience of audience members. As if that weren’t enough, the theater is also blessed with high-tech video capabilities that allow for visual/multimedia reinforcement of live theater and other presentations with DVD, VHS and Power Point. Total cost of sound and lighting exceeds $500,000.

Besides all the bells and whistles, this facility has not stinted on the bread-and-butter needs for doing great theater. An ample enough scene shop allows students a hands-on learning opportunity in building sets. The theater also boasts a separate rehearsal hall—a large dedicated space complete with the hookups needed to pipe in sound cues and music from the main theater. There’s also a remote-controlled closed-circuit TV system providing live video feeds to all backstage areas. Sufficient dressing rooms, a hospitable green room, a costume shop and a pro-level box office round out the internal features. Always of concern to theatergoers is parking, and there are two large areas nearby reserved solely for PAC use.

“It’s going to be beautiful here when it officially opens,” says Mark Collino, the theater’s acting technical director and an instructor in lighting design. “We’ll have had time to flesh it all out by then. I think the recent delay actually helps us to fine-tune the details.” By way of comparison, Collino—formerly a lighting director at Opryland and an instructor at Colgate University—cites UT-Knoxville’s Clarence Brown Theater and the Blair School of Music’s recently opened Ingram Performing Arts Center. “Those are nice spaces, but I believe ours is more technically advanced. The students at TSU are so lucky. This is a very rare experience, and it’s five stars all the way. It’s further proof that Dr. Hefner wants to have the best at this university.”

Collino stresses that the PAC will be made available to other arts organizations. “Currently, we have no staff for the facility, but ultimately we’d like to try to get as many folks as possible to use the space.”

There are winners all around with the advent of the PAC, but probably none more so than Scott, a TSU grad himself. Scott directs the university’s Theater Program, is artistic director of ANPT and is also one of Nashville’s finest actors; he’ll be directing In the Blood when it finally opens in a couple of months. In addition, he maintains a busy schedule performing nationwide in a one-man show about Martin Luther King. Indeed, Scott is no stranger to dreams.

“It’s hard to describe how I truly feel,” he says warmly, speaking from a touring date in Chicago. “I want to do justice to the legacies of my mentors. The big story is that the PAC is the culmination of the dream of the late Thomas E. Poag [former chair of the Communications Dept.] and the late William Dury Cox [former head of the Theater Program]. As he was retiring, Mr. Cox said to me, 'It’ll happen after I’m gone.’ Well, they passed the baton to me and I’m grateful for this opportunity. We’re in a position of privilege, and we don’t take it for granted.”

After In the Blood opens in March, the next major production at the PAC will be ANPT’s mounting of an original script by foremost African American writer-director John Henry Redwood. “The relationship between the university and the theater company is key,” says Scott. “We now have a great laboratory to work in. It’s going to be a nice space for us, and it’s such a change from the days when I was a student. Now we have a theater.”