Mandell Theater anniversary celebrations kicked off with a student performance by the Drexel Theatre Program of “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical” in November 2023. Photo credit: Pedro Vasquez.
Back in 1973, Drexel’s Samuel P. Mandell Theater debuted as a venue with student performances of Noël Coward’s “Red Peppers” and “Ways and Means” and ended with Stephen Sondheim’s “Company.”
Fifty years later, at the kick off of a year-long anniversary celebration of the theater, the flavor on stage was likewise light, with a flair of mythic fantasy as the curtains rose for a series of special performances.
On Nov. 10, 2023, 50 years to the day when Mandell Theater was dedicated in 1973, the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design honored Mandell’s central place in Drexel’s performance arts and momentous occasions as a university, starting with student performances from Drexel Theatre Program’s of “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical,” and followed by performances later in the season of the Drexel Dance Program’s “Together We Move” dance series and the Drexel Music Program’s “Perspectives: What We Hold Most Dear” band concert.
The performances were all part of Mandell at 50, hosted by the Department of Performing Arts in Westphal College.
“Celebrating 50 years of the Samuel P. Mandell Theater is a testament to Drexel’s commitment to fostering creativity, scholarship and innovation in the arts,” says Westphal College Dean Jason Schupbach. “This milestone is not just about honoring our past but also about looking forward to the future, where the Mandell Theater will continue to be a vibrant hub for artistic expression and community engagement.”
Mandell at 50
The anniversary celebrations throughout 2023–2024 featured one monumental event per term from each program. Two events with external performers — “Kristina Wong, Food Bank Influencer” on Oct. 12 and an April 18 concert by Afro-Indigenous musician Mumu Fresh — were put on through the Mandell Presents series as part of Mandell at 50.
Nick Anselmo, teaching professor, program director of Drexel theatre and producing artistic director for theatre, and Adelle Rubin, who had formerly been the director of the theatre program for 38 years, including during the creation of the Mandell Theater, at the Mandell Theater 50th anniversary celebration in November 2023. Photo credit: Mark Garvin.
The special opening night was attended by alumni who had been involved with the Mandell Theater during their time on campus — including a few alumni couples! — as well as Adelle Rubin, who had been the director of the theatre program for 38 years and was involved with its creation.
Students, faculty and professional staff from Westphal College’s theatre, dance and music programs participated in opening night and all of the year’s productions, just like generations of Dragons have been for the many concerts, recitals and plays presented in that space.
“Students take administrative and technical leadership roles like they would in a real theatre company, and they read plays and musicals to recommend what we should perform based off of what’s appropriate, what would bring in a large audience, what could challenge us and what we have the budget to do,” says Nick Anselmo, teaching professor, program director for theatre and producing artistic director for theatre. “They chose ‘Percy Jackson,’ and when I read through the script, I thought it would be a lot of fun and fit our mission.”
The winter term featured Feb. 9 and 10 performances of the Drexel Dance Ensemble and a Mandell 50th celebratory reception. Professional choreographers from the region and New York City worked with the ensemble to create eight Mandell 50th premieres in “Together We Move,” a concert showcasing the dancers’ versatility and skills in genres ranging from hip-hop to contemporary ballet.
“The dance programming for the 50th anniversary year is reflective of the University’s core values,” says Jennifer Morley, associate teaching professor, program director for dance and of the Drexel Pilates Training Program. “As an institution that is rooted in community, we proudly partner with local choreographers who are developing meaningful work from a range of perspectives. We are also thrilled to integrate national and international choreographers into the mix as a means of inviting our students to embody global citizenship.”
The Mandell at 50 programming concluded June 7 with the Drexel University Concert Band (DUCB)’s spring concert, “Perspectives: What We Hold Most Dear.” The Drexel Music Program’s performances feature guest artists, as is common. For example, on June 9, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s concertmaster David Kim and associate principal viola Kirsten Johnson joined the Drexel University Symphony Orchestra’s spring concert.
“Our DUCB season has been built around this idea that music can be a way to see or experience what is outside of our everyday and that it can provide perspective. Our final program this year is full of musical affirmations of identity. Central to this program is Katahj Copley’s new work for wind ensemble, ‘Dope,’ which was created after Copley realized he had been compartmentalizing his musical inspirations,” says Patrick Bailey, ensemble director and conductor of DUCB.
The Jazz Orchestra performed in the Mandell Theater during a concert in the winter of 2024. Photo courtesy the Department of Performing Arts.
Mandell Today
“The Mandell Theater is a jewel among West Philadelphia’s theaters,” says Anselmo. “It’s a great performance venue and a cultural destination.”
The expansive 424-seat theater is in constant use. Drexel’s three performance programs rotate using the space to rehearse and perform on stage for weeks — a “huge gift of time,” says Rebecca Malcolm-Naib, ensemble director for Drexel Dance Ensemble and FirstDance, who noted that most rental theaters usually give one to two days of tech and rehearsals.
“Mandell is a very welcoming and comfortable space to bring our audiences into,” says Luke Abruzzo, associate teaching professor and program director for the Drexel Music Program. “It’s incredibly vital.”
It also functions as a real-world classroom, providing experiential learning opportunities related to the performing arts, stage production and technical operations, as well as building soft skills.
“At this beautiful, fully equipped theater, Drexel Dance and FreshDance Ensembles can use this fabulous performance venue for choreographers to see their work produced in a professional setting and dancers to perform on an expansive proscenium stage for captive audiences. Students work side-by-side with professionals, learning how to produce and run the shows from the administrative and technical sides,” says Malcolm-Naib.
The space, which is run by Managing Director Caroline Leipf and Technical Director Chris Totora, also is used for other Drexel events as well as presentations by outside organizations (like The Philadelphia Dance Academy’s “The Nutcracker” and Chocolate Ballerina Company’s “A Nutcracker Dipped in Chocolate”). Guest speakers and experts have also come to Mandell for discussions, workshops, performances and other collaborations with Drexel partners.
“The Mandell Theater is one of Drexel’s great assets. Both of our Department of Performing Arts venues — Mandell and URBN Annex Black Box Theaters — are places where curriculum, community and student life come together. They are also places where we welcome all of Philly into Drexel,” says Leipf.
Photo proofs of Samuel and Ida Mandell and then-Drexel President William Hagerty, among other guests at the Nov. 10, 1973, inaugural opening of the Mandell Theater. Photo courtesy Drexel University Archives.
Mandell Over the Years
The arts have always had a home at Drexel. In its founding year in 1891, when the institution was the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry and based in today’s Main Building, Drexel offered its auditorium to the Philadelphia Chorus as a rehearsal space; bringing in community from the very beginning.
For the next nine decades, Drexel events, performances and organizations related to dance, theatre and music were mostly held through student organizations, extracurricular activities and informal classes and programs. Students practiced and performed in Main Building and other spaces on campus before the creation of the Mandell Theater in 1973. It was still primarily used by the Drexel Players, a student theatre organization founded in 1963 and whose faculty adviser, Adelle Rubin, had been hired in 1967 both to advise the student group and teach theatre and speech classes. Rubin had also advocated for and was heavily involved in the creation and continuation of what was known as the Mandell Theater Complex in the Educational Activities Center (today’s MacAlister Hall).
Undated photo of the Samuel P. Mandell Theater. Photo courtesy Drexel University Archives.
The theater was named for Board of Trustees member Samuel P. Mandell, who had joined in 1972 and retired a year later as vice president of Food Fair Stores Inc. Upon the theater’s dedication, he and his wife Ida received lifetime passes to all theater productions.
Since then, many artistic performers and performances have graced Mandell Theater. There are now multiple dance ensembles, and students have both performed a variety of dance styles and partnered with external dancers for workshops and shows over the decades (for example, dancing monks of Assam, India, who performed an ancient ritual of dance at Mandell in addition to master classes and workshops). There are now five choral groups, two large bands, a jazz orchestra, a symphony orchestra and a variety of smaller instrumental groups for students to join. Drexel students involved in those music, dance and theatre offerings now perform at least once a term in Mandell.
Since its beginning, Mandell has welcomed a panoply of events: In its first year, the space hosted the Drexel Talent Show as well as the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia, for example. Mandell has also housed a variety of notable visiting speakers, including Nobel Laureates like nuclear physicist Hans Bethe; fashion designers like Emilio Pucci; activists like Yolanda King, the eldest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.; government officials; academics; authors and so much more. Apple founder Steve Jobs attended a red-carpet movie premiere at Mandell for “Going National,” a 1983 documentary about Drexel’s historic requirement for all students to have access to a microcomputer, which were supplied through a legendary partnership with Apple.
University-wide events like Convocation have been held in Mandell Theater, which has also been used for commencement ceremonies. And Mandell has hosted community performances as well as events for external programs, like a National Endowment for the Arts 2016 Big Read program event recognizing writer Zora Neale Hurston.
“A theater should always be a communal space, and I also mean this in the highest artistic sense. It’s where we come together as a community, but it also is a community center,” says Anselmo, the theater director.
The Future of Mandell
Portraits of Samuel and Ida Mandell presented during the theater’s opening still hang to this day, and their grandson Jonathan will soon be making his own mark in the space.
This winter, a glass mosaic wall panel created by Jonathan Mandell will be installed in the theater’s lobby. Mandell is a local fine art artist whose tile and mosaic work is on display at the National Constitution Center and Citizens Bank Park. In addition to his studio practice, he’s also been an instructor in Westphal College. The installation will be unveiled this spring and will remain in the lobby indefinitely.
The Department of Performing Arts’ programming, Mandell Presents, is partly funded by the Samuel P. Mandell Foundation, which has been managed by the Mandell family since Samuel died in 1978 and Ida in 1982. As part of the gift creating Mandell Presents in 2021, all tickets for performances in the theater have been fully subsidized for the first five years so everyone can attend for free. The Mandell Foundation also generously supports capital improvements and maintenance. Most recently, a theatrical lighting upgrade converted the entire theater to an LED system, which was both a technical and sustainable improvement.
And those performances? Well, plans are already being made for future performances in the Mandell Theater — one step toward, hopefully, the space’s 100th anniversary, too.