Construction begins on the American Repertory Theater’s new home in Allston

[Anthony D'Isidoro]

Construction begins on the American Repertory Theater’s new home in Allston (Mark Shanahan, Boston Globe: June 26, 2024)

Harvard begins construction on new American Repertory Theater home (bostonglobe.com)

 

A rendering of the new American Repertory Theater under construction in Allston. The 70,000-square-foot building 

is a 10-minute walk from Harvard Square.AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER

Five years after Harvard University announced plans to relocate and expand its celebrated American Repertory Theater, work is finally underway on the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Creativity & Performance.

The new complex, made possible by a $100 million donation from the Goels, will include two performance venues, rehearsal studios and teaching space, and an outdoor performance area designed to host ticketed and free programming.

“What’s so exciting about our new home is creating the entire ecosystem of what supports our work,” said ART artistic director Diane Paulus. “We’ll finally have space that allows us to do all of it under one roof — incredible rehearsal spaces and classrooms — which really makes the teaching-hospital metaphor that has driven my vision very palpable.”

The Tony Award-winning theater company, whose productions have been staged at the Loeb Drama Center on Brattle Street since the ART’s founding in 1980, expects to open the Goel Center to visitors in late 2026 and begin hosting shows by early 2027.

Designed by the British architecture firm Haworth Tompkins, the 70,000-square-foot building is going up at the corner of North Harvard Street and Western Avenue in Allston, a 10-minute walk from Harvard Square over the JFK St. Bridge. It will be adjacent to Harvard’s Enterprise Research Campus, a new mixed-use development now under construction that will include labs, hundreds of apartments, and a hotel.

In recent years, several ART productions have made their way to Broadway, including “1776″; “The Glass Menagerie,” which won a Tony Award; “All the Way,” which won two Tonys; “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” which also won two Tonys; “Finding Neverland”; “Pippin,” which won four Tonys; and “Jagged Little Pill” and “Waitress.”

Kelvin Dinkins Jr., the ART’s executive director, said the new space will enable the theater to mount a greater variety of shows.

“We can provide a more bespoke experience for artists who come in and design for our space,” he said. “As we’re getting more into the land of immersive experiences, and what live performing art is, we’ll be able to reconfigure the space in a way that meets the needs of those designs that probably can be achieved in the Loeb now, but not without some difficulty.”

Dinkins doesn’t anticipate there will be a problem luring longtime ART patrons to Allston.

“I think our audience is already adventurous,” he said. “I have to imagine the people will follow great art and great experiences, and that’s what we’re promising in this new center. I don’t think a mile is going to make much of a difference for our audience.”

The new complex will include two performance venues, rehearsal studios and teaching space, and an outdoor performance 

area designed to host ticketed and free programming.AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER

Paulus said the Goel Center will be open to the public during the day, offering free Wi-Fi, food and beverage service, and gathering and performance spaces.

“If you’re hanging out in Smith Playground, right around the block, and you want to come in and have lunch or coffee, or come with your kids and hang out in our outdoor yard, then our new home is for you,” said Paulus. “It’s making the building a town hall, a convening center. The destination could be the eight o’clock show, but I’m hoping the building is buzzing with activity morning, noon, and night.”

Haworth Tompkins’ past projects include renovations of several prominent British theaters, notably the Royal Court, Young Vic, Bush, the National Theatre, and the Bridge Theatre. In 2018, the firm’s cofounder, Steve Tompkins, was named “the most influential person in British theater.”

The ART said the design of the new building prioritizes sustainability, with utilities drawing from Harvard’s lower-carbon District Energy Facility, rooftop solar panels, natural ventilation, and building materials such as compressed laminate timber and reclaimed brick.

“How do you design a building that feels the opposite of a culture palace or a highfalutin institutional building?” said Haworth Tompkins architect Tom Gibson. “We thought really hard about how the language, as it were, of the architecture — the mass timber, the reclaimed materials — not only is sustainable and low carbon, but also feels non-precious and really welcoming.”

The $100 million gift from the Goels is among the largest Harvard has ever received. (David Goel, a 1993 Harvard alumnus, is cofounder and managing general partner of Matrix Capital Management Company, based in Waltham.) When it was announced in 2019, Harvard’s then-president Lawrence Bacow said the couple’s gift would help transform the formerly working-class neighborhood known as Barry’s Corner.

“Allston will be home to one of the nation’s great incubators of creativity,’’ Bacow said.

Designed by the British architecture firm Haworth Tompkins, the 70,000-square-foot building is going up at the corner 

of North Harvard Street and Western Avenue in Allston, a 10-minute walk from Harvard Square over the JFK St. Bridge.

AMERICAN REPERTORY THEATER