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Hylton Performing Arts Center prepares for grand opening
The Cool List online magazine lists it as one of the world's top 10 “Modern Music Hall Masterpieces,” along with the famed Sydney Opera House in Australia and the National Grand Theater of China.
Ten minutes inside will prove to visitors that the magazine is right.
The Hylton Performing Arts Center will officially open next month at George Mason University's Prince William Campus.
The 85,000-square-foot building is a community effort and will be first and foremost, a venue for community groups.
The centerpiece of the project is the 1,140-seat Merchant Hall, a nine-story opera house.
Project director Brian Marcus said the original proposal was for a much larger theater but organizers wanted the facility to be primarily a community venue.
“We decided to make it a more intimate place,” he said, noting that groups like the Prince William Symphony Orchestra or Prince William Little Theatre probably couldn't fill a 2,000-seat auditorium.
“It has its upside and its downside, obviously,” he said. “The downside is you can't sell enough tickets to make it financially feasible. It's a challenge.”
That's where the community partnership comes in. The performing arts center is a joint venture between private donors, GMU, the state, Prince William County and the City of Manassas.
Marcus said it is the facility's community arts focus that has helped the Hylton Center to pick up so many subsidies and grants.
The center was designed by Holzman Moss Bottino Architecture in New York and Hughes Group Architects in Sterling. Its most prominent features are the copper, exposed concrete and natural wood paneling.
The outside of the building is also covered in copper, which will, by design, slowly turn various shades of green over the years so the facility's appearance changes with time.
Inside, the copper has been treated so it will neither weather nor take fingerprints.
The copper, wood and concrete are combined with red and purple highlights and the effect is nothing short of breathtaking, county officials agreed during a recent tour.
“People in this corridor are going to be blown away,” said Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart (R), one of many tour participants who viewed the center with open-mouthed awe.
The facility offers several separate arts venues, each named after a local family.
“All the main spaces in the hall are named after families that are prominent in the community,” Marcus said. “We didn't want 'Pepsi Hall' or 'Jiffy Lube Live.'”
Instead, visitors will see the Didlake Grand Foyer, Merchant Hall, Gregory Family Theater and Buchanan Partners Gallery.
The foyer serves as both an entryway and a venue, Marcus said. It seats 280 for a sit-down dinner or can hold 580 for a cocktail reception.
The second floor of the foyer is the Buchanan Partners Gallery, which will serve as a gallery for visual arts.
Down the hall is the Gregory Family Theater, a 270-seat space for chamber music or individual recitals.
“This is going to be one of the most flexible spaces in the whole complex,” Marcus said, noting that the seating can be rearranged for various uses. “This will be great for solos, for theater, for rock bands.”
The room also has a sprung floor for dancers and the paneled walls fold back and disappear to change the acoustics.
Nearby, giant soundproof doors keep noise from escaping the center's scene shop, where props, lighting and sound are coordinated.
One of the aims of the scene shop is to provide training for theater tech students studying the art of backstage management.
“Trained professionals will be here to work with students,” Marcus said, noting that the shop will provide a type of “graduate-level” class for students who have already taken theater tech courses at the Candy Factory in Manassas.
The giant concrete scene shop can also serve as a venue for events, he said, noting that dinners could be served in the warehouse-style room.
The big draw, however, is Merchant Hall. The European-style opera house is a 19th-century design.
“The key kind of concept with this hall is it's a very intimate hall,” Marcus said. “It's built up, not back.”
The old European theaters were smaller structures where the most prized seats in the house were the prestigious boxes. In America, boxes were considered elitist and so many theaters were built with auditorium seating that went further back, allowing for larger audiences on a more equal footing.
The benefit of the old style, however, is that everyone is closer to the stage. Merchant Hall revives the old European structure so no seat is more than 80 feet from the stage, Marcus said.
The 27 family boxes in the hall were donated by local governments, businesses, community groups and individuals. Each donor group has first dibs on its box for an event but if the group chooses not to buy tickets, they will be sold to the general public.
During their tour of the hall, Prince William supervisors went straight to their 54-seat box to check out the view. County Executive Melissa Peacor said the supervisors will be able to buy tickets for themselves and their guests, for visiting dignitaries or for corporate officials they're hoping to lure to Prince William.
The stage itself is 100 feet wide and 45 feet deep and is fronted by an opera pit that can be raised or lowered. The room also has adjustable acoustics to accommodate different types of performances.
The copper finishing is also present in the theater, hand-set with 85,000 copper nails, Marcus said.
The copper also has an added benefit -- for performers at least. Cell phones can't be used inside because the copper blocks signals.
That may be a bonus, but it wasn't the intention of the copper, which was put in for purely aesthetic reasons, said Marcus.
Work is almost, but not entirely complete on the Hylton Performing Arts Center, which will officially open on May 21.
The opening-night performance features the Canadian octet Leahy, a group of siblings who perform step-dancing and Celtic vocals. Tickets for the performance run from $34 to $50.
The following night, May 22, will feature the American Festival Pops Orchestra with tickets from $75 to $125.
On May 23, the center will host Family Day with barbecue on the lawn throughout the afternoon and performances by local groups including the Manassas Ballet, Youth Orchestra of Prince William, Parrish Handbell Choir, Vpstart Crow and more. Admission is $10 for adults and free for those under 18.
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