Hudson Valley Shakespeare, a theater company about 80 minutes north of New York City, has opened the Samuel H. Scripps Theater Center, the 39-year-old company’s first permanent home.

With design by Studio Gang and construction managed by Consigli Construction, the $33 million project provides an indoor-outdoor setting for the company’s open-air productions, immersing audiences in the Hudson Valley landscape.

The Scripps Theater Center extends the company’s year-round functionality and enables a wider range of programming.

A curved, timber-framed grid shell, along with a natural material palette, helps integrate the building with the surrounding landscape. The stage’s proscenium arch frames views of the Hudson Highlands, serving as a backdrop for HVS productions.

The project includes the 6,800-sf, 451-seat theater as well as a 10,000-sf area with dressing rooms, a green room, wardrobe facilities, and offices, plus separate spaces for concessions and public washrooms.

The landscape design by Nelson Byrd Woltz features 14 acres of new plantings. Accessible paths through native meadows offer views of the Hudson and the Wey-Gat cliffs. Picnic lawns face the stage and the river.

The project’s sustainability strategies include low-carbon mass timber, rooftop solar panels, rainwater harvesting and reuse, and restore native grasses and wetlands. HVS intends to achieve carbon neutrality for the campus by 2040.

“My Studio shares with HVS a deeply held commitment to creating spaces that bring people together and connect them to nature,” Studio Gang Founding Partner Jeanne Gang said in a statement. “The building’s curved mass timber structure harmonizes with the natural beauty of the site while modeling a more sustainable future for cultural and performing arts spaces.” 

The Scripps Theater Center is on track to become the first purpose-built, open-air theater in the U.S. to receive LEED Platinum certification, according to HVS.

On the project team: Studio Gang (architect), Nelson Byrd Woltz (landscape architect), Thornton Tomasetti (structural engineer), Badey & Watson (civil engineer), Buro Happold (MEP engineer), Art Massif (mass timber), Fisher Dachs Associates (theater), Threshold Acoustics (acoustics/AV), Consigli Construction (construction manager).