However, the building's history has been so obscured that few Hofstra students know much about it.
I discovered this as I stood outside of the playhouse and asked passers-by if they had any knowledge of its history.
"I don't know any history per se," said freshmen Eric Levy, 18, "but I know that it has been around at least since the 70s and it houses productions, lectures, concerts, etc."
Freshman Melissa Freemer,18, said, "Why would I know anything about it? I just need to know where it is."
The playhouse was built in 1958 and designed by Aymar Embury. In 1974 it was officially named after Hofstra's second president, John Cranford Adams, who was a renowned Shakespeare scholar.
Adams served from 1944-1964 and was President Emeritus at the time of his death in 1986.
Adams began the Drama Department's annual Shakespeare Festival that same year in addition to creating a large scale model of the Globe theater to display within the playhouse.
The former president was so obsessed with the playwright that he wrote his doctoral dissertation, "The Structure and the Globe Playhouse Stage", about the Globe theater.
Adams worked on his dissertation for another 10 years before it was published my Harvard in 1942.
His passion for all things Shakespeare did not stop at his mastery of Tudor architecture or at his study of Elizabethan theater and Globe documents.
Dr. Adams was so enamored by Shakespeare that he designed and built a three-dimensional replica of the theater.
After being displayed at Hofstra since 1950, the model was moved to the then newly constructed playhouse, whose structure was considered with the replica Globe theater in mind.
The John Cranford Adams Playhouse has also hosted such famous names as Susan Sullivan, Phil Rosenthal, and Francis Ford Coppola, who directed a show there.
Coppola reminisced about his experiences on the Adams stage in a promotional video on Hofstra's website.
The playhouse has also hosted several notable concerts, speakers, and productions.
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