Before they were famous, a lot of IC’s most successful actors graced the stages of Dillingham Center, including C.C.H. Pounder ’75, Aaron Tveit ’05, and Jeremy Jordan ’07.

Dedicated in 1969 and named for Howard Dillingham, the college’s fourth president who transitioned the campus from downtown to South Hill, Dillingham Center houses dancing, acting, and design studios, as well as a costume and lighting shop.

Thanks to the multiple performing theatres inside, Dillingham Center hosts six main-stage theatre productions each year, most recently Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches.

Several alumni contributed to Dillingham Center during a $10 million fundraiser in 2009, which resulted in an 18-month renovation.

“For theatre students, [Dillingham’s] red carpet was so iconic that when the building was renovated, they saved cut squares of the old carpet and sold them as part of the fundraising effort,” said a 2011 alumna. “I still have mine.”

A 1989 alum also remembered the red carpet fondly: “This was a place for all performers and crew of all types to gather, commiserate, plan, eat, run lines, make out, fight, practice, and just be ourselves.”

“Dillingham has pretty much been my second home for the last three-and-a-half years,” said theatre major Jackie Asbury ’18. “It has meant the world to me to be able to have a place to go where I know I will be surrounded by people I love who are all passionate about the same thing I am: theatre. I have learned so much inside that building. There is an abundance of beauty and magic in there.”