The Department of Drama is housed in a modern brick facility (built in 1980) which accommodate all of our classrooms, studio, and production activities. The building includes two theatres - the 372 seat Ernest Stone Performing Arts Theatre, with its well-equipped modified thrust stage (the stage opening is 36' X 20' and is suited for proscenium or thrust shows), and the flexible Second Stage Theatre.  The Second Stage is a "black box" theatre with 80 seats and a fixed lighting grid over the entire space.  Both theatres have fully equipped lighting and sound booths.   The Theatre complex is located adjacent to our open-air seating amphitheater.

The sound booth includes a Yamaha LS9, 32X16  digital console, a SFX sound effects playback workstation, a DAT recorder/player, a CD player, dual cassette deck, and a Minidisk recorder/player.  The sound system also includes a dbx Driverack electronic EQ system, feedback suppression equipment, effect units, compressor/limiters, and 24 Sennheiser and Samson wireless microphones.   The system also has a hearing assist system, a stage listen system, and a Clear-Com wired intercom system with a Telex wireless system.

The department has its own computer lab with six Dell workstations equipped with dual LCD Monitors, digitizer tablets and DVD-RWs.   All workstations are equipped with WYSIWYG, AutoCAD, Photoshop, graphic design and 3D drawing software, Vegas video software, along with Sound Forge digital audio software and Sonar Midi production software.  The lab also has a  42" Color Inkjet Plotter along with a digital audio workstation including  Alesis 16X4 sound console/computer interface, a Tascam Midi Interface, DAT player/recorder, Minidisk recorder/player,  and a CD/Cassette deck. 

The main theatre has a state of the art ETC Sensor Lighting System with 288 dimmers in a dimmer-per-circuit setup with a DMX network. The lighting rig includes a ETC Express 48/96 lighting console and over 250   ETC Source Four lighting instruments, color scrollers, gobo rotators, a strobe unit, an ETC Revolution Moving Light, 2 Apollo Right Arms, and two Martin 1220 moving lights.  The Second Stage Theatre has 24 dimmers, 24 ETC S4 fixtures, and a computerized lighting controller along with 42 circuits on a fixed lighting grid.

A large and extremely modern scenery shop with a full array of woodworking and metalworking tools; a large property shop; and a fully equipped costume shop with industrial sewing machines, are all in Stone Center. The building is also equipped with rehearsal studios,  dressing rooms, and a Greenroom.

The Drama Department is located on the corner of 11th Ave. and Church on the northeast corner of the JSU campus.  In addition to the Drama Department, Stone Center is the home of the English and History departments.