One of Cornell's community partners in education, Ithaca's Hangar Theatre, announced a fundraising campaign June 30 to raise $4.6 million. Housed in a former airplane hangar built in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration, the professional summer theater company needs the money to renovate its aging playhouse and make it a year-round facility.

The highlight of the campaign-launching event at the theater was a phone call of encouragement from actor Jimmy Smits, MFA '82, who acted at the Hangar as a Cornell theater student. He was just one of the participating Hangar alumni helping to launch a campaign that has already raised $3 million toward its goal.

The theater attracts 40,000 visitors each year, but "it leaks, it floods, there are birds, there are bees," said Hangar Theatre Executive Director Lisa Bushlow '91. The Hangar's dressing rooms, lavatories, green room and storage areas are "abominable," Bushlow said. "The community deserves a facility that is commensurate with the talent that is onstage."

Renovations will also provide a home for the Hangar's year-round education programs, to which Cornell contributes support. The university is the main sponsor of the Hangar's Artists-in-Schools program, said Hangar development director Mary Beth Bunge. Among the many Cornell-affiliated people who work or volunteer at the Hangar is production designer Kent Goetz, professor and chair of the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance.

Previous incarnations of the Hangar drew on the theater departments at Cornell and Ithaca College, and "Cornell has been supporting the Hangar since we started 34 years ago," Bushlow said. "We work with Cornell's education department to assess our education programs. We add to the quality of life [in Ithaca] when Cornell is recruiting faculty and staff."

"The Hangar is the best of what Ithaca has to offer," said Cornell trustee John Alexander '74, who with his wife, Elaine Alexander '77, co-chairs the Hangar campaign. "The arts, education, entertainment and engagement of people in Ithaca with the arts is as good as it gets."