Thanks to a $100 million gift from David E. Goel and his spouse Stacey L. Goel, Harvard University will establish a new research and performance center promoting arts in Boston.
The gift from the Goels aims to create a future home for the American Repertory Theater and transform the University’s arts campus, along with extending support to various arts programs throughout the faculty of arts and sciences.
The American Repertory Theatre, a professional theatre based at Harvard, has been honored with many awards in the past and engages with more than 5,000 local students and community members, in addition to drawing in artists from around the world to develop musicals, plays, and operas.
“The A.R.T. is a magnet for extraordinarily talented individuals who change the way we understand the world through live theater,” Harvard president Larry Bacow said. “Allston will be home to one of the nation’s great incubators of creativity. We are so grateful to the Goels for their commitment to nurturing and connecting knowledge through one of humanity’s most enduring mediums.”
The new state-of-art center will anchor Harvard’s arts presence in Boston’s Allston neighborhood alongside its John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and its business school which already reside there.
“There is something almost metaphorically perfect about the architectural license to build a center for the arts at the nucleus of Harvard’s expanding campus, a physical representation of the idea that each set of academic disciplines is strengthened by proximity, dialogue, and contribution to the same tapestry of human understanding,” David Goel said.
Boston mayor Martin J. Walsh also applauded the Goels for making the contribution, which will open up new opportunities for collaborations with renowned artists from around the world.
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