Whether it was through the never-ending drilling students heard during tests or the fire alarm that was activated due to dust from the construction, students have been anxiously waiting for the inauguration of the new auditorium – The Haddad Center for Performing Arts – this Monday the 18th.
Tracy Harrison, the Chief Development Officer at Graded School, provided insights into the development and importance of this project. She shared, “The Advancement Office takes care of Development, Alumni Relations, and Communications. Development involves among other things fundraising for Campus Projects.” The project for the new auditorium was part of the Centennial Campaign launched in 2011, in anticipation of Graded turning 100 in 2020. The initial vision for the new campus was quite grand, including tearing down old buildings and constructing new ones. However, due to economic uncertainties in Brazil and the substantial fundraising required, the project evolved into a phased approach. Consequently, the focus then turned to renovating specific sectors of Graded’s campus such as the gymnasium, student center, cafeteria, playground, and auditorium. Additional projects, like the innovation center, learning lab, and more, were incorporated later.
All of these projects are funded through two primary sources of funding: the Capital Fund Donation contributed by all Graded families when they first come to Graded and additional donations from alumni, parents, grandparents, and former students. The former covered annual maintenance, while the latter supported major projects. In the case of the auditorium, which marks the end of the Centennial Campaign’s projects after the successful renovation of the Dona Emilia Cafeteria, started in “December 2020 [when the Haddad family came] with a very, very generous gift”, a total of “more than 10 million” reais placing them in the Legacy circle of Graded’s donations, to renovate the auditorium. The project was “huge because as soon as you put up the construction sites, it’s a major amount of work. Everybody out. It bothers everybody.”
There were two main reasons for the auditorium project. According to Renato Fabiani under the division of construction, maintenance, and school facilities, one of them was because it “was very old, from the late 60s”, meaning that “it was already pretty deteriorated” (We all remember the bats). Nonetheless, “the main [reason] was the number of seats the auditorium had. Because it had 400 or so seats and the demand was for 600 seats. So [we] had to find a way to add 200 more.”
Because “the school chose not to put everything down,” as stated by Fabiani, a solution had to be found for were to allocate those extra seats, which led to the creation of the mezzanine, an area that the 9th graders will get to enjoy during Monday’s assembly. Despite this, the Haddad Center was not just a renovation. Renato Fabiani explains that “it’s not just architecture. It has installations, air conditioning, it has acoustics, it has the scenographic part, stage lighting, [and] waterproofing.” The new auditorium re-purposes the former PTA office and Copy Center as backstage dressing rooms complete with air conditioning and soundproofing. Despite the architectural challenges and the need to expand vertically due to space constraints, the increased height now allows for state-of-the-art lighting and sound to be paired with more elaborate set pieces. Incredible performances are sure to come.
As Tracy Harrison comments, “We’re super excited to have [the auditorium] open again” in addition to having “the Middle School greens back, which had been closed for the last three years”.
When asked what’s next, Ms. Harrison says “we have plans ready to go for a new lower school cafeteria in the E Wing” mentioning that “we’re really lucky that we have parents, grandparents, and alumni who support the school.”. But for now, as Renatio Fabiani says: “I think we have to take a break because it was a lot”. Overall, regardless of the difficulty of this project, both from a fundraising and construction standpoint, the new auditorium will surely be a centerpiece of the Graded campus and most importantly, make cold day assemblies way more bearable.
A special thank you to Tracy Harrison and Renato Fabiani for the interviews and for allowing The Talon to take a look at the auditorium prior to its opening.
[Note: Quoted Portuguese phrases have been translated to English within the text for clarity.]
