One man's HOP experience

Posted 11/04/02, by Tamara Steinert

Barry Grove '73 offered his thoughts and reminiscences about the Hopkins Center's first 40 years

In a speech that garnered a standing ovation, Barry Grove '73 offered his thoughts and reminiscences about the Hopkins Center's first 40 years. Grove, Executive Producer of the Manhattan Theatre Club and former chair of the Board of Overseers of the Hopkins Center and Hood Museum of Art, made the presentation at an Oct. 24 dinner gathering of current and past Overseers, arts faculty, Hop and Hood staff, and College officials,

"I first discovered the Hopkins Center on freshmen activities night while I was grinding away at a pre-engineering major," Grove remembered. In an attempt to escape the tensions of academics, he became involved in theater, first building flats in the scenery shop, then acting, he said.

"By the end of sophomore year, I had spent one semester at the National Theater Institute, and another assisting a director on Broadway. All this before the D plan was a reality and before I had turned 19," he said. In his senior year, he served a three-month stint with the Royal Shakespeare Co., which caused him to miss graduation.

However, his involvement with the Hop wasn't limited to his academic work, he said.

"During my years at Dartmouth, the Hopkins Center wasn't merely a place to study or experience great art. I lived here. I crammed for govy and psych exams with fellow students on its darkened stages. I stayed up late into the night plotting my future life and dreaming my dreams in the green room. It is here that I learned of my mother's death, here that I courted Maggie, now my wife of 29 years, and here that I made life-long friends."

"And this experience is not uniquely mine; similar stories can be told by and about countless others," he continued.

Grove also talked about the Hop's history, noting that 10 days of dedication and thanksgiving celebrated the facility's opening in November 1962. Building the Hopkins Center was a "monumental" achievement, he noted.

"At a cost of $7 million (the equivalent of 43 million in today's dollars) and after three years of construction, four acres of space had been created, including concert halls, theaters, galleries, shops, offices and public space-not to mention the now famous post office, an inspired addition that would serve to bring every Dartmouth student nearly every day into the Hopkins Center's warm embrace," he said.

However, not everyone was happy about the project at first, he said.

"Remember that the modernism of the design along with the size and scope of the project had created its own set of enemies," Grove remarked. "And yet opinion began to sway as the building came to life. One card [President] Dickey received that week simply said: 'Dear Sir, I was wrong. You were right. It's great.'"

"But, in the end, the Hop wasn't designed to be merely a magnificent building," Grove added. "It was there to serve as a vessel for both the performing and visual arts — and what a remarkable vessel it has been."

Grove also outlined some of the challenges the Hop faces in the near future, focusing particularly on physical upgrades and expansions in a time of economic uncertainty.
"These are difficult times, and the College faces a host of priorities. Operating cuts will have to be faced even before new capital programs can be carried out. But it wasn't easy to build the Hop in 1962 either. It took great leadership and tenacity to understand that Dartmouth would be the better for it — not a little better, a lot better. And so it has," he said.

Grove concluded his remarks with a charge to the community to continue its efforts to make the arts a part of every Dartmouth student's life.

"The young men and women who graduate from Dartmouth need to have spent enough time in this building so that they know without a doubt: We need the passion and the power of the theater's spoken word. We need the beauty and the bold majesty of soaring music and innovative movement. We need the insight and inspiration of the visual arts. And we need the magic of film. We need the arts, because they make our lives richer, our hearts lighter, and our souls freer. We need them, because they feed us for the rest of our lives whatever else we go on to do. We need them, because they will last long after we are gone. We need them, because they shape who we are as people," Grove said.

- Tamara Steinert