Fine Arts
Pfeiffer Hall is North Central College's oldest fine arts building. It was built in 1926 and seats 1,050. Only six months after it opened, the Naperville Women's Club performed "Little Women" in Pfeiffer Hall. This structure was also used by the College to show movies. The first "talkie" was shown in 1930. Today Pfeiffer Hall hosts theatrical and dance productions, as well as performances by such artists as Blues Traveler, LeAnn Rimes and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
North Central College in 2008 dedicated the $30 million Wentz Concert Hall and Fine Arts Center. Designed by the internationally acclaimed Chicago architectural firm of Loebl, Schlossman and Hackl, Inc., the 57,000-square-foot (5,300 m2) facility was planned and sited with the needs of both the College and the Naperville community in mind. Plans evolved over a 15-year period, driven by explosive growth in the College’s music, theatre and art programs, but also a parallel transformation of the city’s downtown, which has brought more than 50 restaurants, numerous national stores and the first four- and five-story buildings within a few blocks of the North Central campus.
The Concert Hall is named in honor of Dr. Myron Wentz, Class of 1963. Nearly $10 million in gifts from Wentz — a scientist, and entrepreneur and music lover — over the past two years have brought the facility to center stage. (Plans for a new Fine Arts Center were put on hold a decade ago when a devastating flood in Naperville forced the College to turn its attention to its damaged athletic complex instead.)
In addition to Wentz Concert Hall, the Fine Arts Center also features the Madden Theatre, which is a 150-seat “black box” experimental theatre (that can double as a dance studio) as well as a facility to provide much needed music rehearsal space, practice rooms and offices. The center also houses a spacious lobby, a kitchen facility and the Schoenherr Art Gallery (all supportive of major civic gatherings).
Rededication of Meiley-Swallow Hall, the old Grace Evangelical Church at Ellsworth Street and Van Buren Avenue, was a highlight during the 2007 Homecoming weekend. In 2005, the College embraced the opportunity to preserve a part of Naperville and North Central history by acquiring the former Grace Evangelical Church. The 95-year-old structure was erected by the same denomination that founded North Central College and an addition to the College's art and theatre programs. Special features of this building include: nearly 23,000 square feet (2,100 m2) of space, much-needed art display area, a 225-seat thrust stage theatre, and additional office space.
North Central College has a very strong theatre program. The 2000 production of "The Pirates of Penzance" was selected to perform at Kennedy Center American College Theatre's Region III Festival. Productions of Ken Ludwig's "Moon Over Buffalo" and Schmidt and Jones' musical "Philemon" were both selected to perform at the festival's "Evening of Scenes" in 2004 and 2005. The 2007 production of "Thoroughly Modern Millie" was selected as a Regional Finalist from more than 1,300 productions. The 2009 season featured a stunning production of "Cats," and in 2010 North Central became one of the first college theaters in the nation to stage a production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera."
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Famous quotes related to fine arts:
“Nature predominates over the human will in all works of even the fine arts, in all that respects their material and external circumstances. Nature paints the best part of the picture, carves the best of the statue, builds the best part of the house, and speaks the best part of the oration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms with his body, in a sheltered place; but man, having discovered fire, boxes up some air in a spacious apartment, and warms that.... Thus he goes a step or two beyond instinct, and saves a little time for the fine arts.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)