Jorgensen’s roles throughout the years 

From hosting Grammy winners to drag shows; from holding club performances to commencement ceremonies; from being a packed theater to becoming a substitute lecture hall, the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts has played many roles since its debut in 1955.  

Before the theater, audiences had to cram in the unaesthetic confines of Hawley Armory and the Student Union ballrooms for entertainment. Performers didn’t have access to proper lighting equipment or sound amplification.  

A Daily Campus article from Oct. 7, 1955, reflects the anticipation that filled the campus as the community waited for the theater doors to open.  

“The largest auditorium is no longer in Hartford or New Haven or anywhere else in the state, it’s in Storrs,” the article says. “No longer will people have to flock solely to Hartford for cultural stimulation and enjoyment.” 

Albert N. Jorgensen, the seventh and longest-serving president of the University of Connecticut and the theater’s namesake, believed the university was “the state’s educational and cultural leader,” according to the Jorgensen theater’s website.  

Albert spearheaded the creation of multiple buildings the Storrs campus has today, including the Student Union. The theater was his last big project, spending over $1.5 million to construct — $12 million in today’s economy when adjusted for inflation. When it was completed, it was called University Auditorium.  

Rodney Rock, now the executive director of the theater, described it as Jorgensen’s “special baby.” To honor his love for the project, the university renamed the auditorium to Jorgensen Auditorium after Jorgensen retired in 1962.  

Rock came to UConn in 1988 to pursue his master’s in music. While he worked toward this degree, he worked as a house manager in Jorgensen.  

During his first semester, Jorgensen had booked renowned opera singer Leontyne Price. Rock sought out a master’s in music at UConn because he wanted to be an opera singer himself. Therefore, he was starstruck when he found out one of his idols was going to perform at the stage he worked for.  

After Price’s performance, Rock was fueled with giddiness and excitement, but he still had a job to do. He ran downstairs to the marketing office, but he was so full of adrenaline that he literally couldn’t stop running. He crashed into a faux marble column and broke through it. The outline of the hole his body left is still visible to this day. Rock thought he would be fired on the spot, but the presenter at the time, Jack Cohan, understood his excitement and let him off the hook.  

After he graduated, he stayed in Storrs and moved into the business manager role. He climbed up the theater ladder until 1996 when he became the executive director.  

But Rock didn’t want to be the director of an auditorium, he wanted to be the director of a performing arts center.  

Within the same year as becoming the director, Rock contacted the Jorgensen family to express his belief that Jorgensen should not be limited to the title of an auditorium. He told the family that the name should encapsulate Jorgensen’s history of hosting some of the biggest talents in the cultural arts. The first performance Jorgensen ever hosted was the Boston Symphony Orchestra on Dec. 6, 1955.  

The Jorgensen family agreed. In 1997, the name switched to Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, as it’s known today.  

Some of the greats have visited the theatre multiple times. Samara Joy, 2023 Grammy winner for Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal Album, made her third Jorgensen appearance in December 2024. 

Rock first heard Joy sing when she was 20 years old performing in the Litchfield Jazz Festival. He immediately knew she would grow into a major star. 

“There’s going to be a time in the future when you mention Samara Joy at the same time that you’re talking about Sarah Vaughan or Ella Fitzgerald … jazz singers of the past that had had really unusually talented voices” Rock said.  

There’s a pattern that Joy goes on to win a Grammy within a few months of performing at Jorgensen. Rock jokes whether that’s really a coincidence or if Jorgensen is a good luck charm for Joy.  

Rock makes an effort to introduce himself to every single performer that comes through Jorgensen’s doors, no matter how big their name.  

“Most of them are just very ordinary people that kind of have extraordinary jobs…,” Rock saysid. “I try to stay here until they exit the building. It’s like you’re inviting these people to your home. You wouldn’t invite these people to come to your house and then disappear. You want to make them feel at home, so that’s what I try to do.” 

But the greats are not limited to just singers. In March 2023, Jorgensen welcomed the Martha Graham Dance Company, the country’s oldest modern dance company.  

Jorgensen has also supported artists on their rise to stardom. On Oct. 25, 1975, the theater hosted Fleetwood Mac’s sold-out performance. While the author of the article published in the Connecticut Daily Campus (now called The Daily Campus) didn’t appreciate the performance, it helped get the band to the iconic status it has today.  A recording of the band’s performance is available on Spotify.  

The band performed one of its most popular songs, “Landslide,” which had just been released in July of that year when the band came to Jorgensen.  

During his freshman year Weekend of Welcome, Pierce Colfer, a fourth-semester math major and proud theater kid, sat in one of Jorgensen’s 2,800 olive green cushioned seats. As he and hundreds of others waited for the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to speak, he looked at the big TV screens hanging on either side of the stage promoting job opportunities at the theater for students. He was elated. 

Thanks to his experience in high school and middle school as a theater tech in his local community theaters in Stamford, Conn., Colfer was quickly cast as a stagehand and could continue his career as a theater kid.  

Colfer wears many hats as a stagehand. His responsibilities range from simple maintenance, like mopping the stage, to more arduous tasks such as assembling 15-foot props made of heavy metal. 

He did this when “Daniel Tiger Neighborhood Live!” came to Jorgensen.  

“That whole day was a fever dream,” he said. He arrived at the theater at 6 a.m. and didn’t leave until 11:00 that night. He spent nearly three consecutive hours unloading materials from the company’s truck and building its props.

But aside from the long show days “It’s a very chill, relaxed, friendly environment,” Colfer said.

Of the 25-30 student stagehands Jorgensen employs, Colfer has formed an ensemble of friends he hangs out with in and outside of work. His higher-ups, Bryan Woscyzna, the technical director, Scott Fisher and Abigail Golec, the technical assistants, have also made an effort to connect to their student staff.

According to Colfer, the staff regularly has movie nights on the big projector that hangs above the stage. Aside from watching films like “The Spongebob Squarepants Movie,” Woscyzna, Fisher and Golec come up with other forms of team bonding. One of these ways is an ongoing mini-ceramic duck hunt. 

Colfer noted one instance when Fisher brought 100 little ducks and hid them around the theater. While this game was originally meant as a bonding activity for the staff, many of the ducks have yet to be found, so it’s possible an audience member will accidentally join in by finding their own little duck during the next performance the theater hosts.  

But the theater hasn’t only been a home for the arts. While the university was slowly reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jorgensen was also a home for education.  

Rock offered Jorgensen’s space as a lecture hall because he was scared that he and his staff would lose their jobs.  

During the Fall 2020 semester, Jorgensen acted as a lecture hall serving 25 classes, according to a Daily Campus article.  

An organic chemistry class took place in the theater three to four times a week, as it had an enrollment cap of about 400 students. Rock’s staff oversaw running the light and sound systems to make sure each class ran as smoothly as possible. Students sat spread out across the house while the professor lectured from the stage like an actor giving a monologue.

Rock also teaches a First-Year Experience course. He converted one of the downstairs rooms into a studio, and he invited artists from around the world to speak to his classes via Zoom.

“That was the main motivation,” he says. “I wanted to desperately make sure that my staff remained employed. The number two motivation was trying to keep the Jorgensen brand out there. That we were still active in spite of the international pandemic.”  

While Jorgensen is no longer the sole provider of cultural entertainment for all of Connecticut, with places sprouting like the Bushnell Performing Arts Center and the Garde Arts Center, UConn still holds the largest college-based presenting program in New England.  

“This is your auditorium,” the 1955 article says. “Take advantage of the opportunities it offers … This is the University of Connecticut’s crowning achievement to date. Be proud of it.”