lynn wexler - david magazine march 2012 issue

Detail of a Bell in the Carillion Tower

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New Art Deco Performing Arts Center Redefines Downtown Vegas

Smith Center President-CEO Myron Martin, the modest genius arguably behind this month’s opening of the world-class per-forming arts complex downtown, winced not long ago as his

sophisticated East Coast friends teased him for being the arts and culture guy from Las Vegas. Guess who’s beaming now?

Smith Center Board Chair Don Snyder, Martin’s complement in guiding the long-awaited center to fruition, says, “Other than the Hoover Dam, no project since has touched the community as broad-ly and deeply as this one.” He’s beaming, too!

Snyder brought Martin, the former executive director of the Lib-erace Foundation and the UNLV Performing Arts Center, on board to help explore the viability of a game-changing cultural venue in Las Vegas.

Snyder, president of Boyd Gaming at the time, had been lured to his board post by Steve and Elaine Wynn at a community call to ac-tion meeting in 1994 to address the city’s cultural void. Eighteen years and $470 million later (made possible by an outstanding team, a supportive community and generous public and private dona-tions), The Smith Center takes its bow. The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation donated $200 million to the project in honor of its Chair Fred W. Smith and his wife Mary, the second largest donation ever to the performing arts in the United States.

“One of the first funding vehicles (for the Center) was the 2 percent tax on car rentals at McCarran Airport that the city imposed on visit-ing tourists,” Martin says. “After the Reynolds Foundation’s generous lead gift, the next groups to contribute were individuals, companies

By Lynn Wexler-Margolies • Photographs By Geri Kodey

Mojave Masterpiece

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and foundations here in Las Vegas. Fifty-seven of those contributed $1 million-plus each. We call them our ‘founders.’ Beyond that we have gifts from 1,000 donors, who contributed at all levels from $999,000 down. You add all that up and you get to $470 million.”

Like the Hoover Dam, The Smith Center represents a watershed project for Las Vegas. Naysayers now aside, this magnificent center for the arts opens to a nearly sold-out season of blockbuster shows that hail from London’s West End to New York’s Broadway. From Wicked, to Mary Poppins, The Color Purple, Memphis and Million Dollar Quartet, Las Vegas audiences are in for a theatrical windfall. Other bookings include the jazz/bluegrass group Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, tap-dance guru Savion Glover, jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, humor writer David Sedaris and actress/comedian Lily Tomlin.

Martin says the team’s goal was to open with 6,000 Broadway Las Vegas season-ticket subscribers. That tally has surpassed 10,000. “Some people don’t believe me when I tell them that. I attribute it to pent-up demand.”

A cultural wasteland no more, Las Vegas now enjoys fifth row center orchestra seats to a world-class stage. And to her sobriquets as the Entertainment Capital of the World, Sin City and the place where secrets don’t follow you home, Vegas can add epicenter of culture in Nevada.

In fact, The Smith Center offers Southern Nevada a chance to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any place in celebrating artistic excellence, education and culture. “And if all that seems a bit lofty,” Martin says, “remember (that) it took more than 120 years for Carnegie Hall to reach the status it has. And we’re still looking ahead to Day 1.”

The nearly 380,000-square-foot, art deco-inspired architectural beauty not only will feature seasonal Broadway touring hits, it will accommodate national ballet companies, international symphonies, various genres of concerts, boutique theater productions, the best of cabaret jazz and comedy shows, the Lied Discovery Children’s Museum, and rooms where local and visiting school groups can learn about art and theater from pros. “It’s heartening to be able to do things that are educationally based. Before even opening our doors, we’ve succeeded in partnering with the Kennedy Center on K-through-12 programs, and the Wolf Trap Institute on pre-K pro-grams. That’s unheard of,” Martin says.

It’s enough to make you blink twice, pinch yourself or wonder wide-eyed like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz: “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Vegas anymore.” But you are. And the Smith Center transforms dream to reality.

For Martin, it’s primarily about offering cultural and educational opportunities and enjoyment to the entire Las Vegas community.

“This was not conceived as an extended tourist attraction for Strip visitors. Rather, it was envisioned as a vital force for artistic excel-lence, aimed at embracing and engaging our community and making Las Vegas a better place to live for everyone, not just the upper ech-

Reynolds Hall at the Smith Center



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elon. That’s what makes this endeavor so rewarding for me!” With ticket prices starting at $24 to $35, and not a bad seat in the

house, a metaphorical fanfare for the common man is attainable. And Martin can’t wait for the day when Clark County school buses surround the Smith Center. After all, he says, “I was inspired to do what I’m doing by a fourth-grade field trip to a theater program. My daughter is in the fourth grade. I want her, and other children as well, to get excited, even inspired, just like I did.”

Meanwhile, composer Aaron Copland’s 20th century master-work, the real Fanfare for the Common Man, was chosen by The Smith Center to inspire Las Vegas artist Tim Bavington’s synthetic polymer painting that will dominate the second floor of the largest Center venue, Reynolds Hall. Both the theme and the hiring of a local artist reflect the Center’s own vision “as the new cultural heart of our community,” said Richard Johnson, vice president and chief financial officer of The Smith Center. “We’re building a world-class performing arts center for the people who live and work in Las Ve-gas.”

The facility’s 5-acre parcel is central to the city’s 61-acre Sympho-ny Park. It is fronted by a 2-acre grassy promenade for pedestrians, with staging for outdoor performances. Abutting the campus are the World Market Center and the Frank Gehry-designed Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. Plans also call for a bou-tique hotel, a hotel/casino and numerous hospitality, retail and residential sites. “It stands over time to single-handedly change the economic face of Las Vegas,” Snyder says.

The complex itself houses three magnificent, acoustically precise venues: Reynolds Hall, a 2,050-seat proscenium theater, with an orchestra pit for up to 100 musicians; cozy Boman Pavilion, a 258-seat, cocktail-style jazz cabaret overlooking Symphony Park; and 200-seat Troesh Studio Theatre, suitable for rehearsals, children’s shows, community events and private gatherings. A tree-lined, grand scale, open-air foyer is meant to entice theatergoers into a central courtyard. Planters and comfortable benches invite guests to sit a spell before, during and after performances. “When guests enter the vestibule, I think they’ll marvel at the stone walls, beauti-ful Italian marble floors, exquisite deco-styled chandeliers and finely crafted stainless steel railings,” Martin says.

A 170-foot tower, with 46 handcrafted bronze bells that col-lectively span four octaves, rises majestically from the northwest corner of the imposing edifice. The carillon tower is the symbol for the Smith Center’s logo, as it carries through the architecturally inspired theme of the Hoover Dam. A stainless steel crown tops the tower, reflecting Nevada’s official nickname, The Silver State. The tower’s nighttime glow will serve as a beacon on the downtown ho-rizon for progress and community.

The stunning outer façade is covered with 3-inch-thick Indiana limestone and features more of those stainless steel railings. As the sun sets on the face of The Smith Center, the limestone will be suf-fused in a sublime glow.

Art Deco Seat Detail



“We’re pleased that the Smith Center is a 100 percent (Leader-ship in Energy and Environmental Design)-certified ‘green’ building, which is no small feat to accomplish in a facility of this magnitude, and with multipurpose functions,” Martin says. “For instance, LEED requirements include natural light, and that’s the last thing you want in a theater.” LEED consultation begins in the design phase, so materials are chosen and integrated in advance of construction.

The Smith complex is built to last 200 years. “That’s a rarity in Vegas, where structures rise, fall and rise again within a span of 20 years,” Martin notes. “We won’t be around for it, but with the open-ing of the Center we are creating a legacy to be enjoyed for many generations to come.”

David M. Schwarz Architects designed The Smith Center, and HKS Architects executed the design. According to Martin, Schwarz con-sidered many aspects of the Las Vegas landscape and its history be-fore settling on the 1930s art-deco design of the iconic Hoover Dam as the inspiration for the performing arts palace.

By using 2,458 tons of Indiana limestone, and 4,000 tons of structural steel, he hoped to rekindle the spirit of the dam – the first great public works project to evoke Las Vegas to the world. For Schwarz, past and the present would merge to express future inten-tions.

Both dam and Center were built amid epochal national down-turns. Both projects provided jobs, boosted the Nevada economy and attracted people to Las Vegas, by presence and purpose. The Smith Center board agreed the dam-Center parallel provided the best, most powerful design theme for downtown’s instant icon.

Acoustics are as essential to a performing arts center as design and execution. Sound integrity in this case was entrusted to the aptly named Akustiks, led by Paul Scarbrough. His design oversight, from flooring to lighting sconces, contributed to the sonic signa-tures of The Smith Center’s spaces. The Center’s design incorporated a sub-basement of concrete 36 inches thick to soak up ambient sound from the nearby Union Pacific tracks. For good measure, The Smith Center’s roof contains a 12-inch concrete slab with an air gap, buttressed by another 10 inches of interior sound-deadening mate-rial, to neutralize downtown noise.

The much-anticipated Smith Center opening represents a psycho-logical salve to a community suffering through an intractable hous-ing crisis and high unemployment. Because the center was built by the community and for the community, it may offer substance and solace to those too long alienated by a transient population and the self-serving motives of some.

Art, music, performance and education open minds and hearts, build cultural bridges, break down barriers and fill gaps of a frac-tured society. As Martin puts it, “I really believe we are doing what’s right and what’s best for the cultural, educational and economic well-being of the Las Vegas community.”

If he’s right, The Smith Center will usher in an era of urbanism, fine arts, unity and economic growth to a town aching for change.

Art Deco Wall Lamp

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lynn wexler - david magazine march 2012 issue

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