With UArts’ closing, no one quite knows the future of the Walter Dallas Theater
Committee members for a proposed theater say they don’t know if plans to honor the late Philadelphia director and educator will go forward.
Since the University of the Arts’ sudden and unexpected closing last month, no one seems to know what will happen with the university’s plans for a Walter Dallas Theater.
Dallas, a director, playwright, musician, and teacher, came to Philadelphia in 1983 to establish a new theater program at the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts. That school merged with the Philadelphia College of the Arts in 1985, becoming the University of the Arts.
Considered a powerhouse in African American theater, Dallas came to UArts, having already worked with such actors and writers as Viola Davis, Denzel Washington, and James Baldwin. After he died from pancreatic cancer four years ago at age 73, a committee was created to plan a theater honoring Dallas at UArts’ Arts Bank on South Broad Street.
“As the first director of the university’s Theater program, Walter Dallas literally set the stage for what would become the Ira Brind School of Theater Arts,” a December 2023 article in Edge, the UArts magazine, reads. “It’s only fitting that since his passing in 2020, UArts has announced that a new transformative theater hub on campus will carry Dallas’ name and honor his legacy.”
The committee had scheduled an event in September to launch its fundraising , but that event has been canceled, a person familiar with the project said.
“We had a slew of grants and funding sources potentially coming in this summer and fall, but we did not have any funds in the door yet,” said a committee member who preferred to remain anonymous.
“We only started fundraising less than a year ago and focused on big government and foundation funds. A launch event was slated for September but sadly none of this is happening at the moment. There was a ton of interest, though,” they wrote in an email, adding there is “No money to give back.”
The committee member added that the group may meet later this summer to determine how the theater project can continue. “We need to see what is going to happen to the real estate,” they said. “We’d like to continue to share Walter’s mission with our city.”
“In addition to an updated theater space, the facility will include a new music makerspace and a restaurant, classrooms for youth programs, a lobby gallery/museum, and more,” the Edge article states. “By design, the Walter Dallas Theater will offer LGBTQIA+ teens a safe space, reflecting UArts’ commitment to inclusion and honoring its namesake’s legacy.”
“It would be a tragedy to lose the project. Walter means a lot to a lot of people in Philadelphia.”
Neither Judson Aaron, UArts’ board chair, nor a spokesperson for Alvarez & Marsal, the company the university hired to manage its closing, returned calls or e-mails requesting comment on the fate of the theater.
» READ MORE: Walter Dallas, ‘heartbeat of Philadelphia theater’ with national and international acclaim, dies at 73
Committee members say they’re in the dark
Barbara Silzle, the retired executive director of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund, was among the people that UArts asked to help plan the new Dallas Theater.
Silzle had been an administrator at the College of the Performing Arts when Dallas came to work there. They became came good friends after she helped plan his budget for the new school of theater, she said.
After his death, UArts officials asked her to join the committee because they wanted people who knew and worked with Dallas to bring a sense of his spirit to the project.
“They were clear they wanted to refurbish the Arts Bank at Broad and South,” she said, “and do a capital campaign to raise about $10 million to rehab the Arts Bank.”
A committee zoom meeting that had been scheduled for June 25 was postponed, and Silzle said, its members have not heard what will happen with the university’s plans for the theater. Apart from UArts employees who are still trying to figure out how they will get benefits and severance pay due to them from the university’s sudden closure, the committee also has members who are retirees and those who knew Dallas.
With talks of UArts merging with Temple University, Silzle said she and others are hopeful for the theater’s future. Dallas had also worked at Freedom Theater, on North Broad, close to Temple.
“The community needs to save it,” she said. “It would be a tragedy to lose the project. Walter means a lot to a lot of people in Philadelphia.”
Johnnie Hobbs Jr., a Philadelphia actor and retired UArts theater professor, is also on the theater committee. Hobbs met Dallas shortly after Dallas began directing plays at New Freedom Theatre, where Hobbs was a regular actor.
In 1983, the same year Dallas started the theater program, he hired Hobbs to teach acting at UArts. Hobbs remained there for 30 years, retiring as a tenured professor in 2013.
He also has not heard what may happen to a future Dallas Theater.
“I just really miss Walter Dallas,” Hobbs said. “He was very special. He was a great educator, who was a man who took pride in his work, and took pride in you.”