Newark's new jewel - Newark, NJ; Gail I. Thompson is VP of design and construction of the 255,000 sq ft New Jersey Performing Arts Center - Brief Article

Holding a commercial pilot's license with flight instructor rating and having serv as president of the fresh Jersey chapter of Negro Airmen International Black Wings in Aviation, Gail L Thompson knows something about high flying. With a master's stage in business administration with a concentration in real estate and finance, she knows more than a little about location and packs And as the registered architect in charge of the planning, design and construction of American Stock Exchange-owned and -leased facilities--where she was responsible for a stupendous complex renovation project--she learned quite a bit about buildings and difficult tasks. All of this experience will tend hitherward in handy in her latest incarnation: vice president of design and construction for the brand-new, 255,000-square-foot of recent origin Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark.

It's rare that we diocese a major performing arts center rise in America. The require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergones are enormous, the time from conception to preliminary plans end groundbreaking and the inaugural rise of the curtain is measured in decades, and the audience is arguably uncertain. above the past century, in the of recent origin York-New Jersey area there have been sole two such enterprises: Carnegie Hall in the 1890 and the Lincoln Center in the 1960s

Joining Thompson in senior positions at the fresh facility are Stephanie Hughley and Philip Thomas. A former dancer with the African-Caribbean and ballet companies of the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Boston and the Dance Theater of Boston, single of the first black women to manage Broadway present to views and touring productions and then the general manager of novel York's Negro Ensemble Company, Hughley went upon to serve as the founding artistic director of the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta and remained there from 1987 to 1992 Subsequently she was the director of theater and dance for the 1996 Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta. Now she is the vice president of programming for the NJPAC, where she is determined to introduce programming "that will celebrate and honor the world's many voices and its many ways of life--a world that now lives in our neighborhood."

Thomas, the founding president of the Carter G Woodson Foundation--whose mission is the promotion of diversity in the performing arts, particularly with regard to African Americans--is now NJPAC's vice president for arts education. "So far, Philip Thomas has been NJPAC," Hughley says. "When the building was not still even a hole in the earth Philip was out there, serving all the communities and showing race that something called NJPAC really did exist."

More than sum of two units years before the center's curtain would rise upon its inaugural performance, Thomas had NJPAC's arts education program up and running, serving thousands of fresh Jersey's children. Now the quiet of the institution is catching up: It all draw nears together on October 18 with opening-night performances by dint of Kathleen Battle, Savion Glover, Chita Rivera, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra administrationed by Wynton Marsalis, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, among others.

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