Theatre Hall

The Jesuit academic Theatre Hall was established in the newly erected school building, where it took up the entire third floor. Stairs led from the Academy Courtyard into the Theatre Hall, which had a plank ceiling in place of arches. In the corridor, seven windows looked out onto the Academy Courtyard, and were separated from the hall by a plank wall. The elevated stage at the east end of the hall sloped down towards the audience. Deeper in the niche was a place for the orchestra, and on the right - a box for honoured guests. On March 2, 1715, the new theatre presented a play by professor of rhetoric B.Gizbertt, entitled "Sorrow, assuaged by wine mixed with blood…". It was performed at Shrovetide by students from the rhetoric department, under the direction of the author. Later, new plays were produced at least once, sometimes several times a year, in this theatre. Theatre performances were suspended once the Jesuit Order was abolished. The Theatre Hall stood empty and abandoned during the time of the Principal School of Lithuania. In 1804, university architect M.?ulcas was assigned to reconstruct and adapt it as a teaching venue. The former theatre was thus transformed into three, third-storey auditoriums for the physics department, and were used for defending doctorate dissertations in natural science. Professor and physicist S.Stubielewicz outfitted and worked in these auditoriums and laboratories. When the university was closed in 1832, the building was assigned to the provincial gymnasium, and the venue became the gymnasium church. The hall was restored in 1921-1923 by architect J.Klos, and has now been given back to the university theatre, with hardly any additional changes. It is used for various meetings and conferences.