Project Description
“The Alice” at Goodman Theatre adapted 10,000-sf of interior vacant office space into the first dedicated home for their free education and community outreach programming.
For over 26 years, Goodman Theatre has provided free theatre programs to the community. The expansion increases program capabilities to serve Chicago’s public school students, teachers, and senior citizens—providing more opportunities to harness the creative assets of theatre-making to tackle complex issues and affect positive change in society.
The space is accessed through a wood portal on the second-floor lobby of the existing theatre. The named donor Alice—who had a great love for nature and the outdoors—inspired the rich material palette that creates a mature environment, not typically found in spaces for teen activity.
Rehearsal rooms placed along the building perimeter, display the theatre’s neighborhood identity and commitment to its mission “arts as education” to the streets below. Studio spaces, which are acoustically isolated from floors above and below, are organized behind a meandering “acoustical curtain” of double sided wood slats backed by an acoustical fabric and insulation. This wall defines the threshold between public and learning spaces, designed with sophisticated audio, visual and lighting equipment that support the changing production needs for the various programs.
The acoustically absorptive ceiling has an organic arrangement of lighting and mechanical diffusers which reinforce the concept of being outdoors under a starry sky. Concrete columns are left exposed and “punch” through the ceiling, they are revealed and highlighted by lighting from above.