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Studio Gang to design new home for the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Upstate New York

Studio Gang

has revealed plans for the new home of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Upstate New York.

Located in the town of Garrison, the 13,850-square-foot performing arts space is set to become the first-ever LEED Platinum theater design in the United States when it is completed.

Nelson Byrd Woltz

will provide landscaping for the site, a 98-acre former golf course that was donated to the company in 2020. Anchored by an open-air theater, the design frames the surrounding natural landscape to allow for actors to emerge from the topography.

A timber-framed shell with wooden columns that supports the proscenium arch is carefully oriented to frame the surrounding Wey-Gat (or “Wind Gate”) for the audience and players. The remaining program calls for the construction of several small pavilions that will house the company's back-of-house operations, theater concessions, and standalone public restrooms. Costs of the project were not available at press time.

The studio’s founder Jeanne Gang says: “Our design aims to help the company build on their strengths, with low-carbon architecture that improves daily functionality and amplifies the traditions that define their open-air performances — like the spectacular proscenium arch framing an iconic Hudson River view — as well as create new opportunities for audiences and actors to interact before and after the show. The ecology of the site also receives a new level of care, replacing a monocultural lawn with a biodiverse landscape that brings resiliency, wildlife, and seasonal beauty for all to enjoy.”

The company’s Artistic Director Davis McCallum added: “Studio Gang and the team have met the moment with a design that is not only visually stunning but also supremely functional and sustainable in every sense. Their inspired work will reconnect us with the roots of open-air theater, emphasizing the interplay between the actors, the audience, the play and the place.”

Studio Gang has previously completed two theater projects in the Chicago area in 2009 and 2016. A groundbreaking for the HVSF project is expected later in 2024.