Hudson Valley Shakespeare, a theater troupe based in Garrison, New York, used to hold its performances in temporary tents at Boscobel House and Gardens. Now, a new timber pavilion designed by Studio Gang provides a more permanent venue.
The long anticipated Samuel H. Scripps Theater Center opened this week in Hudson Valley. Nelson Byrd Woltz served as landscape architect.
The theater was designed to provide optimal views of Hudson Valley’s rolling hills and namesake river. It was built on a former golf course that Nelson Byrd Woltz transformed into a 98-acre campus for the theater company, rejuvenating the land’s biodiversity. The restoration of native grasses and wetlands remedies damage inherited from the golf course.
The land was gifted to Hudson Valley Shakespeare in 2019 by Chris Davis, a philanthropist who is also backing the controversial Fjord Trail, a proposed 7.5-mile walking and biking path on the Hudson River by SCAPE.
Hudson Valley Shakespeare artistic directors Davis McCallum and Kendra Ekelund worked in tandem with Studio Gang and Nelson Byrd Woltz on a masterplan for the sprawling site that was implemented over the course of the last six years.
Renderings by Studio Gang were rolled out in 2023. Construction broke ground in 2024. Today a curved grid shell theater supported by large A-shaped timber columns anchors the campus.
“The building’s curved mass timber structure harmonizes with the natural beauty of the site while modeling a more sustainable future for cultural and performing arts spaces,” Studio Gang founder Jeanne Gang said in a statement.
Wey-Gat (or “Wind Gate”) serves as a prelude to the theater. The stage’s proscenium arch is strategically oriented to frame picturesque views of Storm King Mountain. Picnic lawns are speckled throughout the site for impromptu hangouts.
The main theater measures 6,800 square feet and has 451 seats. It is augmented by an additional 10,000-square-foot back-of-house area with dressing rooms, a green room, wardrobe facilities, offices, as well as public offerings such as concessions and washrooms. These facilities are housed within small structures clad in yakisugi, a Japanese method of wood preservation that chars the material.
Low-carbon mass timber, rooftop solar panels, rainwater harvesting and reuse put the venue on track to become the “first purpose-built, open-air theater” in the U.S. to achieve LEED Platinum certification, Studio Gang said. By 2040 Hudson Valley Shakespeare hopes to have achieved carbon neutrality.
Back in New York City Studio Gang also recently completed the Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center in Brooklyn.
