Bathrooms, offices and an entry ramp have been constructed, while the open-plan theater space is weeks from being finished and painted.
But like the "New Century" schools created by New Visions, they will be designed to make learning more exciting with themes like the environment, public service, urban planning, theater or technology.
Bushnell observed that his theater group has always done things differently and planning theaters on a parking lot is no exception.
"It was an extremely ambitious project," said Russell Johnson, the American acoustician whose company, Artec Consultants, was hired to help plan the theater and concert hall with Theater Projects Consultants of London.
Under the plan, the theater club would continue to operate its two theaters, with capacities of 299 and 250 seats, at the City Center on West 55th Street.
The collection, one of the most comprehensive in North America, holds approximately 125,000 volumes on art, architecture, painting, sculpture, graphic design, urban planning, and theater.
Its director, Charles Reinhart, said the festival had a commitment from Durham, N.C., for residency at a planned 2,800-seat 2,800-seat
Among other plans, the theater will mount Mr. Martin's production of "Betty's Summer Vacation" and a Broadway musical from last year, "The Dead".
His semiabstract pictures are often based on maps and architectural plans, including theater interiors (Mr. Kuitca has worked as a set designer) and domestic spaces (he sometimes paints on mattresses rather than canvases).
Mr. Lubin, who owns the rights to his character, has committed the feisty grandmother to a string of European circus festival engagements, and is planning a theater tour with some of the best of the Continent's clowns.
A report in the Arts, Briefly column on Saturday about the withdrawal of Dana Reeve, the widow of Christopher Reeve, from the planned Manhattan Theater Club production of "Brooklyn Boy" misstated the given name of the play's author.
