Tang Theater will be closed off to students and faculty until next year for renovations and roof construction. The Theater and Dance productions for the remainder of this school year and part of the 2026-2027 school year will be held primarily in the Pan Athletic Center and Borden Gymnasium.
According to Rob Lazar, Chair of the Theater and Dance Department, renovations in Tang have been considered for a couple years. However, the full process, consisting of fixes to the roof and building code compliance updates, began this year.
“It’s been on the docket as something that needed to get done ever since I got here [in fall of 2023], but I don’t think the nuts and bolts of it or definitive start times, really got nailed down until last year,” said Lazar. “You probably won’t notice any changes. All of the construction is repair work.”
Lazar continued, “The roof needs to be replaced, so they are basically taking the roof off and then putting it back on. As they take the roof off, they need to clear everything out of Tang because it’s going to be exposed to the elements.”
According to Katie Clark, Instructor in Dance, this year will still see “a full season [of shows].” She explained the ways that the theater department has worked around the closure of the main auditorium. She noted that most shows will occur in Steinbach Theater or Pan.
“There isn’t a traditional curtain, like the heavy curtain that we would normally see on a main stage production. We’ve had to get creative. I think, yes, if you’re looking for a traditional curtain up, curtain down performance that you would see in Tang, that’s certainly an element that we’re not going to be able to work with,” said Clark.
She added, “Pan has a lot of technical capabilities. It’s got a full lighting rig and sound capabilities. When we have a show there, we install a psych, which is the white curtain backdrop, and we’ve got a green room. It is limited on wing space and backstage space for big set pieces, so that’s its biggest limitation.”
Clark gave a run-down of this year’s performance plan, highlighting the different spaces that will be used to host shows.
“We’ve got three shows happening in Pan this term and one in the Steinbach [Theater]. Then the spring will be even busier in Pan. We’ve got the Andover Dance Festival, the spring main stage dance concert, which will happen in the Rubio studio in Pan, [and] Two 901 projects. We’ve talked about a faculty-led play. [There’s] lots of stuff happening in the spring, too,” said Clark.
Some students expressed disappointment at the moving of this year’s big musical, SpongeBob, to the fall term. One performer, Eliza Feygin ’28 believed that the Tang repairs were necessary, yet expressed similar opinions.
“For me, I just got here this year. Because of the construction in Tang, all the new students who came in weren’t able to audition for lead roles in SpongeBob. They held auditions last year because they were holding the musical in fall because of the construction. I was really looking forward to having that opportunity to go out for a big role,” said Feygin.
Despite expressing sadness at the altered production schedule, Kaya Hurteau ’27, a frequent performer, shared her excitement for a safer space. Hurteau explained that she also hopes for some minor enhancements.
“I definitely think Tang needs to be renovated, even if it’s just for safety. Being able to trust the space you’re in as a performer is really necessary,” said Hurteau. “I think that sometimes it’s probably harder for them to install newer technology when the theater is so old, so if that’s something that can be repaired that would be really cool. Especially after seeing Falls, there’s a lot of really cool things they can do with the new technology, the way a theater is built, and the way sound works in a theater, which are really interesting to me. I hope that they can do something along those lines,” said Hurteau.
