Most visitors to McAlister Auditorium get to see the building’s Georgian brick exterior, its stately chandelier-lit vestibule watched over by busts of Furman presidents past, and the auditorium itself, with its neat rows of white-backed, green-cushioned chairs facing the elegant undulating curtain of the stage.
What most visitors to McAlister don’t get to see, though, is the Yoda shrine to the left of the stage, the fallout shelter under it, the dismantled rock wall that used to looked down on it, or the Harry Potter dressing room just off it, to name just a few of the many quirks hidden by the more than fifty-year-old building’s stately facade.
McAlister, it turns out, has quite the personality, a personality that’s a little quirky, a little geeky, and a lot of fun.
The Yoda shrine, situated along a wall lined with ropes used to control the theater’s rigging system, is perhaps the most elaborate of the building’s unsung features.
A toy TIE fighter and X-wing hang from wires beside a cute plush doll of the short green Jedi. Posters of Sebulba, Qui Gon Jin, and, of course, Yoda himself create a backdrop for the suspended figures.
There’s a plastic Darth Vader with a comically oversized helmet, a Death Star and a Millennium Falcon, Stormtrooper action figures, and Yoda Christmas lights. The whole Star Wars universe is on display, along with some random miscellany: duct tape, a baseball, a toilet paper roll with just a few sheets left.
Interesting, it is.
The shrine began as a simple Yoda poster and has been growing ever since as people have brought stuff to add to the display. McAlister Auditorium Manager Danielle Hernandez originally put the poster up after seeing a similar display for Elvis at the Peace Center downtown.
“It was sorta my way to put my stamp on the building,” she said.
Just a few steps from the Yoda shrine is the Harry Potter dressing room. Designed a few years ago by an Art major, the small, walk-in closet-sized space features a mirror bordered by a spell, a curtain with a painting of Hogwarts Castle, and, written on the wall above two wanted posters from the films, a quote from Dumbledore: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
The door to the room features the Hogwarts Coat of Arms and the room number—5 3/4. Hernandez says she would like to do a Dr. Who-themed dressing room next.
To the right of the stage, stairs lead down to the fallout shelter. A slightly-ominous blue fluorescent lightbulb lights the way down, and the original fallout shelter sign—the familiar three yellow triangles in a black circle—hangs on the wall from when the building was constructed back in 1959 amidst fears of Cold War brinkmanship.
The shelter itself is nothing more than the space underneath the stage, which is now used for storage. The auditorium still has some of the original shelter furnishings lying around, including a black barrel labeled “SURVIVAL SUPPLIES” that was designed for storing water or use as a commode.
An orange-painted metal staircase spirals up 58 feet from the back right corner of the stage to the rafters above. From the top, one can see the many backdrops and lights hung in the fly loft above the stage, including rare hand-painted Masonic backdrops, total value in the hundreds of thousands, that the Art Department stores there.
The stairs coming down on the other side pass by the dismantled remains of what was once a rock climbing wall. The previous Auditorium Manager built the wall, complete with a safety net, back in the 90s.
Hernandez reflected on the auditorium’s quirks, saying they brought levity to a formal space.
“With any theatrical space, you get what you put in,” she said. “It’s that little bit of unexpected that makes it worth it.”
