30 Years of Student-Driven Theater

For decades following the College’s founding, the large room beneath what is now the Jeh Vincent Johnson ALANA Center served as a coal bin. Thirty years ago, that space was transformed by then-architecture instructor Jeh Johnson into a “black box” theater for countless students who have been autonomously performing there ever since.

The Susan Stein Shiva Theater has also been a space for professional actors, playwrights, and other theater professionals to spend the time that enabled them to create such works as John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer- and Tony Award-winning play Doubt and Lin Manuel-Miranda’s Hamilton as part of Vassar and New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theater program.

On May 4, members of the Vassar community and students who put on some of those plays this year gathered inside the theater to celebrate the conversion of this former coal bin into a transformational creative space. “For 30 years, this has been a place of passion and laughter and tears,” said Sandro Lorenzo ’24, who co-directed Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years with Grace Adams Ward ’24 in the theater earlier this year. “Here’s to 30 more.”

Lorenzo and Ward were jovial hosts of the event, which featured musical performances from student actors in three of the plays that were produced in the Shiva this year. President Elizabeth Bradley paid tribute to Susan Stein Shiva ’57, the alum who had endowed the theater in 1997 to ensure its permanent survival. Bradley said attending the student-produced shows there has been one of her favorite activities since she came to Vassar in 2017. “We are here to celebrate 30 years of incredible performances like the ones we just saw,” Bradley said. “And it is the Shiva family that has been responsible for re-making this space, including some renovations in 2017.”

Susan Stein Shiva’s daughter, Vassar Trustee and documentary filmmaker Alexandra Shiva ’95, told those gathered at the celebration that the metaphor comparing the fuel that had once powered Vassar and the theater that has fueled the passions of so many over the past 30 years was an apt one. “I know my mother would be incredibly proud to know how valuable this space is for all of you, a place run completely by students,” she said.

Jennifer McDermott ’95, who established and managed the space through its first year as the student-run Coal Bin Theater, offered special thanks to former Director of Campus Activities Ray Parker for supporting students in producing their plays. Vassar’s current Associate Director of Campus Activities, Edward Cheetham, said Parker deserved credit for letting students make all of the key decisions about the performances. “To my knowledge, it’s one of the few totally student-run theaters on any college campus in the country,” Cheetham said.

Abby Bettencourt ’24, this year’s Shiva Theater manager, closed the event by expressing thanks. “I’m so grateful to have this space,” she concluded. “Thanks for celebrating with us, and here’s to 30 more years.” —Larry Hertz

This article was amended from the original to clarify Jennifer McDermott’s role in the development of the theater.