Davis-Merrick Center for the Performing Arts

The Davis-Merrick Center for the Performing Arts is the home for the Music, Theatre and Dance, and Digital Media and Journalism Departments as well as Media Services. 

The Davis Music Wing contains professional caliber audio/visual-equipped classroom, an electronic music studio, ten practice rooms, a chamber music rehearsal room, teaching studios, a listening library collection, and Davis Music Hall, serving performance, rehearsal, and classroom needs, and equipped with an audio/visual system. Principia College is designated an “all-Steinway school” because of its numerous Steinway pianos throughout the Music Department and in Wanamaker Hall. Steinway concert grand pianos are located in Cox Auditorium and the McVay Center for the Performing Arts. A concert practice carillon is housed in Davis, and carillon lessons are available free of charge. In addition to the Davis-Merrick facilities, the Jean L. Rainwater Carillon, with 39 Eijsbouts bells, and the 34-rank Martin Ott tracker pipe organ are housed in the College Chapel. The world-class 56-rank Casavant tracker pipe organ was installed in Cox Auditorium in 2006.

The Davis Drama Wing includes a state-of-the-art sixty-foot square black-box theatre seating up to 150 people. Surrounding the theatre are a costume shop, scene shop, two dressing rooms, and a “green room.” A classroom and rehearsal space is located on the second floor of Davis where students can rehearse and “workshop” theatre pieces. One large dance studio is located in the McVay Center for the Performing Arts at Morey, and one smaller dance studio is in Hay Field House. Classes and rehearsals are held in both studios, Davis Theatre, and the third floor of the McVay Center which serves as a student/faculty dance workspace and classroom. Some large-cast productions are held in the Duvall Theatre in the McVay Center for the Performing Arts.

The Merrick Wing, home to the Digital Media and Journalism Department, provides state-of-the-art radio and television studios, an Adobe-equipped computer lab, classrooms, production studios, and video editing suites. In addition, the Merrick Wing houses the Media Services Department and the student publication, The Pilot, as well as Principia’s Internet Radio station and the PCTV studio.

The Media Services Center is located in the lower level of the Merrick Wing. The center responds to the audio, video, and multi-media needs of the community by providing equipment and personnel to support academic, athletic, cultural, and social events around the campus. Additionally the center has audio and video production facilities, which are used by professors and students for class and individual academic projects, as well as by the center to produce programs and recordings that promote/archive Principia College activities. These production facilities include five video edit suites, a voice-over suite, a green screen studio, a sound recording studio and control room, a television studio and control room, and a full-time internet radio station.