Named in honor of the Very Reverend Basil Anthony Moreau, C.S.C., the founder of the Sisters of the Holy Cross.  The Moreau Center has been a dwelling house for the arts for nearly threescore years. Offer a wide selection of performances, concerts, recitals, plans, and lectures, each year, the Moreau Heart features art galleries, studios, workshops classrooms and two performance venues: O'Laughlin Auditorium (chapters 1,300) and the Little Theatre (capacity 275).

Visit our box office site for tickets and schedules.

Performances and Lectures

The Moreau Center has a rich history. The kickoff words spoken on the stage of O'Laughlin were past Actress Helen Hayes, who participated in laying the edifice cornerstone in 1955. The Performing Arts Series is designed to innovate students to a diversity of artists during their four year education.

Many notable performers have visited the Moreau Center including, Matriarch Judith Anderson, Robert Speight, Maurice Evans, Marian Anderson, Vincent Price, Agnes Moorhead, Duke Ellington, The Imperial Shakespeare Visitor, Erroll Garner, Cicely Tyson, Maria von Trapp, Marcel Marceau, and George Winston.

Some of our Margaret Hill Visiting Guest artists include: Anna Deavere Smith, Lilly Tomlin, Hal Prince, Camryn Manheim, Glenn Close, Sigourney Weaver, Audra McDonald and Dianne Wiest.  In 2015, the visiting artist will be 2d City.

Many prominent  lecturers take visited as well:  Jonathon Kozol, Reza Aslan, Mary Robinson, James, Carroll, Miri Rubin, Nichloas Kristof, Thomas Cahill, Rebecca Skloot, Krista Tippett and Michelle Alexander.  Some of these lecturers were guests in the Christian Culture Lecture Series.

The Moreau Center has besides hosted many alive performances from artists such as Natalie MacMaster, The Guthrie Theatre, James Sewell Ballet, Jen Chapin, N Carolina Trip the light fantastic toe, Kim and Reggie Harris, The Baltimore Consort,  Ririe Woodbury Dance Company, The Ahn Trio, The Aquila Theatre Company, Jean Ritchie, Pacifica String Quartet, Dervish, Colcannon, The Glenn Miller Orchestra and the Koresh Dance Company. Well-nigh recently, Jasmine Guy and Avery Sharpe performed in Raisin' Cane, a musical about the Harlem Renaissance.

The realization of the Moreau Center was due in part to the work and dedication of Sister Madeleva Wolff, CSC, who was president of Saint Mary's College from 1934 to 1961. Modeled subsequently the renowned Wagnerian Opera House in Bayreuth, Germany, the O'Laughlin Auditorium held its yard opening on October xi, 1956, featuring the NBC Opera Company's production of The Marriage of Figaro.  This date also marked the debut of the NBC Opera Company's national bout.  At the fourth dimension, the structure project cost totaled $2.five million.  Regarding the  construction, Sister Madeleva said, "We hope our students develop an appreciate of the arts of all time--the modern and the non-so-mod."   In a June 1956 commodity for Life Mag, Sis Madeleva said,  We have gone two million dollars in debt, but it is a adept debt considering it is for beauty." Sister Madeleva believed that learning was best facilitated in beautiful surroundings. This was certainly exhibited by her attention to the physical landscape of the Higher and, perhaps most notably in the structure of the Moreau Center.  In the same article, She goes to say,

"Dazzler is one of the three attributes under which we tin can know and run across God most clearly. We call up of God in terms of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. It is not piece of cake for us to get in at Truth. We are so filled with fallibility and crowded with prejudices. We have such incomplete noesis that we are limited in our grasp of Truth. The Good is not always easy for us to accept. Often things that are non so good glow with such attraction. We have a knack for resisting goodness. Just Beauty is ane aspect of God that is irresistible. Beauty is God'southward visibility. We can 'run across' information technology in a way we cannot see Truth and Goodness. That is why beauty is so important."