Todd Edwards

tedwards@mtsu.edu

Dr. Russell Church

Speech and Theatre

Discipline specific equipment

Tucker Theatre and BDA 116

Replacement of Existing Technology

The scope of this project is to replace the outdated and non-functional technology in our lighting and sound disciplines. The technology has changed so dramatically in the past few years that a project of this magnitude is needed to bring our teaching offerings in theatrical technology into the current level of acceptable standards.

The Arts and Entertainment field is a multi-billion dollar per year industry which depends on ever changing technology. While keeping pace with current technological trends is a challenge, MTSU students should demand the best possible education, including exposure to industry standard technology. The lighting and sound equipment in Tucker Theatre is a hodge-podge of items, many outdated, some original to the building's opening over 40 years ago. Our student need to be trained on industry standard equipment such as ProTools digital audio workstations and ETC lighting consoles, which are used in over 90% of all entertainment venues worldwide. Perspective employers of our graduates will expect them to have this exposure. We currently do not have any digital audio components in the Tucker Theatre. The analog components that we are using are outdated and ineffective to correctly teach our student theatrical sound techniques. Our lighting is substandard forcing us to rent the needed technology to make it available to our students for teaching and demonstration costing the university money with no concrete return on its investment. The Tucker Theatre is the main theatrical venue on the MTSU campus. Our theatre productions reach thousands of perspective students and community members yearly. A large and diverse group of students from all disciplines on campus take our technology classes in theatre design and technology so the equipment would have a profound and direct impact on the university wide student body, not to mention making MTSU one of only a handful of colleges and universities in the country with this technology; making it an easy decision to choose MTSU for your higher education needs. The departmental, class, and campus wide functions hosted in the Tucker Theatre generate thousands of student contact hours per semester.