When Dayton's $121.5 million Schuster Center for the Performing Arts opens March 1 with a star-studded gala, patrons will be looking up at a blue domed ceiling with fiber-optic lights depicting the constellations on the night of the first Wright Brothers flight 100 years ago. The glittering Cesar Pelli-designed center, timed to coincide with Dayton's "Inventing Flight" celebration, is poised to draw 500,000 people to 200 performances in its first full year of operation.

Its 2,300-seat Mead Theatre will be the new home of the Dayton Philharmonic, Dayton Opera and Dayton Ballet. For the first time, Dayton will have a stage large enough to mount Broadway productions such as The Phantom of the Opera (June 18-July 12). Patrons can park in the Schuster's garage, and get a bite before the show in a trendy bistro in the Wintergarden, a seven-story, block-long glass lobby graced by 30-foot palms.

It's the linchpin in Dayton's evolving entertainment district: five upscale theater spaces on downtown's "Avenue of the Arts." Schuster Center backers hope that Dayton will become a major regional player in the arts. And with Interstate 75 slated for orange barrels from Sharonville through West Chester Township beginning in March, theater-goers might opt to drive north to Dayton - rather than fight their way south to Cincinnati.