The Woodruff Arts Center has taken the adage “the children are our future” to heart with plans to turn part of its space into a place to develop the minds of young creatives.
Its current Rich Theatre, which fits about 333 people, will be renovated and reconfigured as the Goizueta Stage for Youth and Families. PNC Bank’s charity foundation is contributing money to also build a new free playroom for toddlers. The entrance facing Peachtree Street, which has been closed for years, will be redesigned and open to the public with outdoor community green space, lighting enhancements and new signage.
Official groundbreaking begins next week and is scheduled to be completed by January 2026.
The focus on youth is part of a $67 million capital campaign that began about 17 months ago. The nonprofit organization has raised about 80% of that money, according to Hala Moddelmog, president and CEO of the Woodruff Arts Center since 2020.
“Our hope is for the children in the Atlanta area to be exposed to enough arts to truly improve their ability to learn,” Moddelmog said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The stuff weighting them down can be lifted. That would be the true win.”
Christopher Moses, the artistic director at the Alliance Theatre, said he was inspired to focus on children after a study by the Woodruff Arts Center’s Multi-Visit Program and the University of Arkansas’ National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab showed students who attend multiple arts field trips build higher levels of social-emotional skills and stronger school engagement, resulting in higher standardized test scores.
He said he saw how the pandemic negatively impacted kids’ mental health and literacy and wanted to make an impact.
“This is less a renovation and more a renewal of our commitment to the community,” Moses said during the press conference. “We want to make theater a birthright for everyone.”
He said the Rich Theatre in recent years has been largely underused. The Alliance, along with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the High Museum, plan to place more programming in that space once it becomes the Goizueta Stage. They will also build out dressing rooms to service the stage.
Credit: SPECIAL
Credit: SPECIAL
“We’ll be able to produce more children’s shows and run them longer,” Moses said. “We also plan to present more international work to young audiences.”
The free playroom will have different themes for unstructured play. “We’ll have theatrical installations in there like an underwater seascape or a Brazilian rainforest,” Moses said.
The press conference’s “groundbreaking” moment was more imaginative than your standard shovels and hard hats. Instead, they built out a Rube Goldberg-style contraption which ended with a wrecking ball hitting a wall of toy bricks that unveiled a rendering of what the lobby outside the new stage will look like. Kids then scampered on stage to play.
The Alliance Theatre is simultaneously running the Imagine Campaign to create a $10 million endowment, which has raised $7.2 million so far. The money will support theater programming for youth and fund free tickets and transportation for those who couldn’t otherwise afford to attend shows there.
