Hello everyone -
You've been super helpful with my many past questions, so here's another one.
So the main audience seating in my glamorous
cafetorium consists of retractable bleacher-type seating. When it's time to do a show, three rather large (perhaps 10' high x 3' deep x 16' wide) of these units are moved into place facing the
stage, and the seating tiers are pulled out sequentially, starting from the bottom, until we've got 268 (built-in) seats facing the
stage. [We also stick another 120 folding chairs in front of that.]
It being a cafeteria, there is no booth whatsoever. We've been running lights and sound from the side, rather near the
stage, and while this sort of works for lighting, it's just silly for sound, since the board op has no real idea what the audience is hearing. I've been wondering if it would be worth the trouble to
build a tech
desk that could be set up in the last/highest row of the audience risers, to hold the lighting and sound boards. I could
build in a
bit of wall so the boards are hidden, and the ops would be on
headset, so there wouldn't be a need for a lot of chatter, and they'd have an eagle's eye view of the
stage. There are a couple of different ways to run
power and control cables so I'm not too worried about that.
I'm wondering if any of you have done this, if it's worth the hassle to
build and set up, if it would disturb the audience too much, and if anyone has any sketches or plans for how such a piece of furniture might be built/configured. Thoughts?
Many thanks.
Stuart R
@Stuart R I'll give you a few thoughts from my past and you can see if any of them may be applicable in your
venue.
In the mid 1970's, the Stratford Shakespearean Festival dealt with this as follows:
We had approximately eight easily managed tables each approximately three feet front to back by four feet wide. The working surface was Arborite or Formica so as to be smooth for use with pencils and / or ball
point markers and quickly damp moppable. The rear
edge had a full width raised lip routed to accommodate the working surface and rising approximately 1" above the working surface to prevent items placed on the surface from disappearing off into the sunset.
In the mid seventies the seating in the Festival's main
theatre was rigidly anchored in place to stepped poured concrete tiers wrapping 220 degrees around the
thrust stage with its surrounding moat. Patron access and
egress was via 11 stepped aisles at
orchestra level and 11 more at balcony
level with each aisle accessed via light-tight hinged double doors. At the time we were allowed to do
full black-outs including the
aisle and exit lights as our
AHJ had decreed we had sufficient doors to be classified as an
arena for his fire exit purposes. The seats were un-padded with seats which hinged up parallel to the seat-backs and were narrow by today's standards to maximize the number of seats within the confines of the
venue.
The collection of comparatively small desks worked well for
many reasons.
In early stages of rehearsal you could begin with only one
desk close to the
stage for the director.
As rehearsals progressed and
blocking was proceeding a second
desk could be added to accommodate an SM. The SM's
desk could be placed on either side of the director, in front or behind depending upon the desires of the personnel.
Remember this was repertory theatre with rehearsals for productions opening later in the season along with
understudy rehearsals being fit in with eight to ten (and eventually twelve) revenue generating performances per six day Equity week. Desks would be added as required to accommodate costume and lighting designers and their assistants plus composers timing
orchestra music they were writing from scratch to suite the pace and duration of scene changes the duration of which were constantly being shortened as
blocking tightened up and performers became quicker with their moves. Tables were placed and arranged to accommodate the needs of each rehearsal / cuing session. Sometimes tables were spaced apart while at other times three tables would be placed tightly together 'cheek by jowl' as it were. If you're old enough to remember when white bell-bottom trousers were in vogue you may appreciate the following tale: Imagine Festival Artistic Director Robin Phillips at a
desk with Gil Wechsler (Head of LX Design) two desks to his left and PSM Maggie Palmer at a third
desk jammed in between them. It had been a long, tense session, they were close to completing lighting a scene; Maggie was watching her watch and hoping to record one last LX
cue before before calling coffee or lunch whichever it was. Unfortunately Ms. Palmer learned she'd delayed a few moments too long which she summed up succinctly by saying: "All I can say is NEVER put too much faith in a phart!"
Can you just imagine sitting wedged in tight between the Artistic Director and the Head of LX design resplendent in your stylishly pristine white bell-bottoms. Most emphatically one of Maggie Palmer's two best quotes.
To get this back to the small, easily configurable, one person tables:
They were small enough to be set and stashed extremely quickly and you could always find a space to store one somewhere. Storage is always tight in a repertory company and doesn't become any more plentiful as the season progresses and more and more productions are added to the constantly rotating rep'.
They were easily dealt with by one person if / when necessary.
We had a collection of weighted, shrouded dimmable desk-top work lights with an assortment of white or blue lamps to suite the needs of the session.
SM's
cue-light control stations could be plugged in via 36 contact
Cinch-Jones 300 series connectors in either of two locations and with extension cables to suite. This was long before ClearCom and we had custom built
production intercom stations ranging from two to four channels, all intercoms had 'Cueing' with LX, Sound or SM private included depending upon whose
desk they were destined for. All
production intercom stations had begun life with
momentary press to talk (
PTT) buttons and plug-detachable headsets had been added to every station by the time I arrived. All intercom stations plugged into 24 or 27 contact
Cinch-Jones 300 series females secreted under various seats throughout the
orchestra level. Occasionally a new eager-beaver young TD would be hired and attempt to prove himself to all of us old codgers by suggesting everything would surely be far more efficient if we just had one new six or eight
foot table. A few new-comers tried but we always went back to our tried and proven flexibly convenient little tables.
With apologies for droning on and
ON @Stuart R but possibly you may find something of use in the foregoing chapters.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
Hello everyone -
You've been super helpful with my many past questions, so here's another one.
So the main audience seating in my glamorous
cafetorium consists of retractable bleacher-type seating. When it's time to do a show, three rather large (perhaps 10' high x 3' deep x 16' wide) of these units are moved into place facing the
stage, and the seating tiers are pulled out sequentially, starting from the bottom, until we've got 268 (built-in) seats facing the
stage. [We also stick another 120 folding chairs in front of that.]
It being a cafeteria, there is no booth whatsoever. We've been running lights and sound from the side, rather near the
stage, and while this sort of works for lighting, it's just silly for sound, since the board op has no real idea what the audience is hearing. I've been wondering if it would be worth the trouble to
build a tech
desk that could be set up in the last/highest row of the audience risers, to hold the lighting and sound boards. I could
build in a
bit of wall so the boards are hidden, and the ops would be on
headset, so there wouldn't be a need for a lot of chatter, and they'd have an eagle's eye view of the
stage. There are a couple of different ways to run
power and control cables so I'm not too worried about that.
I'm wondering if any of you have done this, if it's worth the hassle to
build and set up, if it would disturb the audience too much, and if anyone has any sketches or plans for how such a piece of furniture might be built/configured. Thoughts?
Many thanks.
Stuart R
" someone might have posted pictures of something like this.
