Construction is under way for the Michael D. Eisner Center for the Performing Arts, named for Michael Eisner ’64, a life trustee of the College, former chairman and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company. The building will be completed in 2019.
The Eisner Foundation provided the lead gift for the building, which will be located on the lower campus. The building’s orientation facing Broadway will signal the intention that both the Denison and Granville communities will benefit from performances by students, faculty, and artists from around the world. “With the Eisner Center, our facilities and performance spaces will finally match the level of talent, passion, and ambition in the young men and women growing up in its halls,” says actress Jennifer Garner ’94.
The building will house rehearsal and performance space for the departments of music, dance, and theatre—including the Sharon Martin Hall, named for donor and former trustee, Sharon Smith Martin ’65—allowing students and faculty from different disciplines to collaborate with each other and with other artists. “The arts are relational,” says Eisner. “They can unite us across differences; they can give us new insights, and they should exist in an interdisciplinary environment as in this new building.”
Says Garner, “In building this stunning new center for the performing arts, … Mr. Eisner is building dreams for generations of students, and making this old alum very jealous.”