Stephanie P. McClelland Drama Theater is New Name for Juilliard Drama Division's Home Stage

Theater is renamed for Tony Award-winning producer Stephanie P. McClelland

The Juilliard Drama Division is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its founding this season and is renaming its ‘Juilliard Drama Theater’ after board member, benefactor, and Tony Award-winning producer, Stephanie P. McClelland. Its renaming as the Stephanie P. McClelland Drama Theater took place at a private event held at the School’s Lincoln Center campus. The theater was renamed in recognition of Ms. McClelland’s generous support and dedication to the drama program. Juilliard President Joseph W. Polisi and Juilliard Board Chair Bruce Kovner were on hand offering welcoming remarks at the dedication ceremony. James Houghton, Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division, introduced the performances, which featured Juilliard Drama Division students in a scene from Shakespeare’s Henry V, with special surprise appearances by Juilliard alumni Nicole Browne, Boyd Gaines, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Tracie Thoms, and Marsha Norman, Director of Juilliard’s Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program. 

Ms. McClelland is a well-known, four-time Tony Award-winning producer of numerous Broadway shows, many of which have featured alumni of Juilliard’s Drama Division. Among her myriad Broadway credits are Cyrano de Bergerac, The Color Purple, Spamalot, The History Boys, The Drowsy Chaperone, Coram Boy, Inherit the Wind, Butley, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Journey’s End. She has been one of the Juilliard Drama Division’s most loyal supporters and a member of Juilliard’s Board of Trustees since 1997. Her first experience with Juilliard came in 1992 when her younger son, Spencer, then in junior high school, was cast in a Juilliard production of A Winter’s Tale. She was so impressed with her son’s experience and the overall quality of the production that she established the Stephanie McClelland scholarship for drama students at Juilliard. She has continued her support throughout the years since.
      
The Stephanie P. McClelland Drama Theater is Juilliard’s main performance space for its drama productions and seats 206 people in a surrounding amphitheater arrangement featuring a flexible-shaped stage that can be configured to suit virtually any kind of play. Many of today’s best-known actors performed in this drama theater while students at Juilliard, including such luminaries as Christine Baranski, Marcia Cross, Kelsey Grammar, Val Kilmer, Kevin Kline, Laura Linney, Patti LuPone, Kevin Spacey, and Robin Williams, among others.

About The Juilliard School’s Drama Division:
The Juilliard School’s Drama Division was founded in 1968 by the renowned American director, producer, and theater administrator John Housman and the French director, teacher, and actor Michel Saint-Denis. They devised a four-year curriculum based upon the training methods Saint-Denis and his wife, Suria, had devised for their European and Canadian conservatories. While constantly evaluating the relevancy of its education to the current demands of the profession, Juilliard Drama’s administration and faculty still use those guidelines that provide actors with a disciplined framework through which to explore the depths of their own creativity. Improvisation is encouraged during early training, as necessary ability in movement, vocalization, and dramatic analysis is acquired. Fully-staged performance begins in the third year, and public performance is the goal in the fourth and final year. Intensive class work in dramatic verse, mask technique, play analysis, speech, voice, movement, singing, comedy techniques, acrobatics, dance, stage combat, make-up, Alexander Technique, and even music studies are integrated into the daily pursuit of learning and interpreting a wide range of dramatic repertoire. Students perform a wide variety of master works from classic to contemporary playwrights. The Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program, created in 1993, has been directed by Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman since 1994. Alumni of the Playwrights Program include David Auburn, David Lindsay-Abaire, Julia Cho, Adam Rapp, and others. James Houghton is the School’s Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division.