IU Auditorium lights still shining 70 years after groundbreaking

The faint songs and immortalized words of thousands of performances and speeches still echo through the halls of the Indiana University Auditorium. For students today, the auditorium is a staple; it’s been here forever. Yet many, including Bloomington residents, do not know anything about its history.\n“I should, I’ve lived here my whole life,” junior Terrick Beitvashahi said. \nEven a few seniors have not been in the auditorium.\n“I’ve never seen a show there,” senior Megan Harris said. “But the IU Auditorium means excellent productions and world-class shows.”\nBut it was not always that way for Hoosiers.\nIn 1921, the IU board of trustees began to consider building an auditorium, a popular idea among students and alumni for decades. W.A. Alexander, who was on the board, started petitioning for a million-dollar plan. The funds would be used for “a Union Building which would include a large Auditorium; a Stadium for the athletic field, and a Women’s Dormitory,” according to documents from the University Archives. Despite later fund raising and site development, nothing would happen for another 17 years.\nThe board accepted an offer of $495,000 from federal funds to build an auditorium on Sept. 9, 1938, in the middle of the Great Depression. It was a part of the Works Progress Administration program. IU President Herman B Wells had a big hand in its construction, according to the documents. \n“It was the first building that Herman B Wells completed during his presidency,” IU Auditorium Director Doug Booher said.\nIt was a collaborative effort between the Purdue president at the time and Wells to raise funds for both the IU Auditorium and the Elliot Hall of Music on Purdue’s campus. \nThe building, at 3 million cubic feet, was designed to house several theaters and could host more than one production simultaneously. It underwent a $13 million renovation in 1997, opening again in 1999. \nToday, the auditorium is home to many of the famous Thomas Hart Benton paintings, which were originally entered in the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, and depict the history of Indiana. The auditorium houses another Chicago-based item: its organ. Dr. William H. Barnes donated the massive organ on May 12, 1948. It was saved from Chicago’s Auditorium Theater’s scrap heap and restored for the auditorium, according to the IU Auditorium Web site. \nThe auditorium has attracted many famous acts, including Bill Cosby, Carol Channing, the musical group Peter, Paul and Mary, Leontyne Price, mime Marcel Marceau, “Les Miserables,” Red Skelton, Victor Borge and Mikhail Gorbachev.\nAnd students are looking forward to the upcoming IU Auditorium season.\n“I’m seeing ‘Evita’ in March,” Harris said. “I’m so excited.”\nAuditorium employees try to uphold its original values.\n“I think ... all of us who have had the privilege to work here take our responsibility seriously,” Booher said. “The great reputation of the auditorium is to see the best in arts and entertainment. We have the responsibility to give a common experience to students and the greater community of Bloomington.”\nSince its construction, the IU Auditorium has welcomed millions of students and thousands of productions. And it all began with student and alumni petitions, like the article from a 1914 Alumni Quarterly, for a place that would “go out and form the muscle of innumerable other social centers,” and where “men and women should come together often, and come together under inspiration.” \nThe rest is history.