The Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center is located in Dayton, Ohio and was built in 2003 to serve as Dayton's key performance arts center. This building hosts performances from local, national, and international performing arts groups. Built on the former site of Rike's department store, the building is home to the Dayton Opera and Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra while showing many famous Broadway hits such as Cats and The Phantom of the Opera while still providing local shows such as the Dayton Ballet.

This building serves as more than an arts center, with such additional features as:

Architect Cesar Pelli created a world-class 2,300-seat theatre that has fiber optic lights in the dome ceiling that depict the Dayton sky as it appeared on the eve before the Wright brothers’ first flight, December 16, 1903.

The Winter Garden houses exotic palm trees and a cafe by a large glass-enclosed wall that overlooks downtown Dayton.

Coordinates: 39°45′40″N 84°11′36″W / 39.76111°N 84.19333°W / 39.76111; -84.19333

Audra Ann McDonald (born July 3, 1970) is an American actress and singer. She starred in the ABC television drama Private Practice as Dr. Naomi Bennett. She has appeared on the stage in both musicals and dramas, such as Ragtime and A Raisin in the Sun. She maintains an active concert and recording career, performing song cycles and operas as well as performing in concert throughout the US. She has won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress four times, twice each for plays and musicals.

Born in Berlin, Germany and raised in Fresno, California, the elder of two daughters, she began to study acting at a young age to counteract her diagnosis as "hyperactive". McDonald graduated from the Roosevelt School of the Arts program within Theodore Roosevelt High School in Fresno. She got her start in acting with Dan Pessano and Good Company Players, beginning in their Junior Company. "I knew I wanted to be involved in theater when I had my first chance to perform with the Good Company Players Junior Company." "The people who have had the most impact on my life: Good Company director Dan Pessano and my mother." She studied classical voice as an undergraduate under Ellen Faull at the Juilliard School, graduating in 1993.