ROSS EVANGELISTA The ’92 Theater’s dramatic facade is a major fixture of College Row. Transformed from a library with donations from the class of 1892, the building now houses all Second Stage productions.

History of '92 Opens Dramatic New Doors By Dan Burson Contributing Writer To some people on the Wesleyan campus, the ’92 theater may be nothing more than another old, reddish building sitting on college row. But to those people who have acted and worked in it over the years, it means a great deal more. "I know that when I leave Wes, the most important place for me will be this building," said Joshua Briggs ’99, this year’s managing director of Second Stage. "And I’m by no means unique in that." Second Stage, Wesleyan’s student-run theater organization, may be the principle user of the ’92 Theater today, but the building has housed a number of different tenants over its 130 years of existence. When it first opened in 1868, the building was known as Rich Hall, and housed the University Library. It remained the only library on campus until Olin Memorial Library was built in 1928. At that time, donations from the class of 1892 provided the funding to convert the building into a theater.

When the newly named ’92 Theater opened in 1929, it housed the theater department, and served as both office and performance space for the department for over 40 years. Master electrician Nelson Maurice, who first began working at Wesleyan in 1961, is the last remaining theater department member who worked in the ’92 while it still held the entire department.

"Theater was a much smaller department in the ’60s," Maurice recalled, "with fewer productions and fewer students. But even so, there wasn’t a lot of space. That facility has changed in almost every way since I came here except for the actual building itself, but it’s still the same kind of people working there and making things happen."

The whole outlook of the theater department changed in 1973 when the Center For the Arts was built. The theater department, with a much larger state of the art facility at its disposal, suddenly began to attract a lot more students. The new crop of majors wasted no time in requisitioning the now vacated ’92 building to be the home of a fledgling student theater group, and Second Stage was born.

For the last 25 years, the ’92 theater has remained under the supervision of the theater department, but has been the soul of Second Stage, an organization which creates entirely student-run productions.

"At Second Stage, you have the opportunity to explore theater in any way you can dream of," said Mary Winn Heider ’00, this year’s Second Stage director of building maintenance. "There are no constraints on it, and every person on campus has that opportunity."

Second Stage started off small in the early ’70s, doing noontime theater and a few major productions with minimal lighting and equipment. When it was founded, there were only three staff members, but the organization has since blossomed to its current level of around 15 a year. Along with more staff came more productions.

"The ’92 has got to be the busiest theater I’ve ever seen," said Professor of Theater Jack Carr. "There’s actually no more room for growth. We have eight events going up there this semester and that’s just outrageous; but in a good sense."

In order to keep up with its growing popularity, the ’92 has been in a more or less continuous state of renovation since Second Stage took over in 1973. The addition of new lighting and sound equipment in the mid ’80s played a big role in bringing the theater up to date technologically, but there is always more work to be done.

"We do small renovations every year," Heider said. "There’s so much to do that you can’t ever get it all done, and something new comes along all the time."

For hundreds of students, the ’92 has represented the ideal opportunity to learn and participate in theater. The flexibility of the space mirrors the flexible goals of the second stage organization and is ideally suited for experimentation and learning from mistakes (provided they aren’t fatal ones).

After 70 years as a theater, the space is packed with history. From its ornate wood-beamed ceiling to the concrete depths of the basement, the ’92 is full of myths and memories. There is the theater’s resident bat, which occasionally makes appearances during shows, or the mysterious "Brig" downstairs where the lights are stored. It has been known as such since the mid ’60s, when the department produced a show about a prison camp and the director kept the cast locked up in this small, stone-walled room over spring break so that they could "get the experience."

And then there are the persistent rumors that the ’92 is haunted. Light technicians working late have insisted on hearing voices, and being saved from serious accidents by some supernatural force. Briggs has his own explanation for these phenomena.

"It just makes sense that there should be ghosts in the ’92," he said. "Some of the most inspirational work I’ve ever seen happens in here, because people are doing it for the love. With hundreds of people loving over the years, it has to create ghosts, and that can make you feel kind of edgy. But its also feels good, because you can think about all the people who have been here, and know that there will be more to come."