I've been working in three/four new spaces... They all have issues which I will say now. For every issue there IS something nice about the space.
Two spaces do NOT have bathrooms on the same floor as the
stage level, nor do they have a place for a crew room to go to before or after your
call / during breaks /
etc. Depending on the use of your
theatre, this may not be needed. But, if you aren't allowing your crew to go into the green room when there is someone renting the space, they will need somewhere to go on their 15 minute breaks.
A
clear path from the tech booth to backstage. One of them you have to go down a flight of stairs, out the front of the building, back in through the
lobby, then back up stairs. But imagine what someone has to do to get to the
stage if something goes wrong. That space they don't hire enough people for the shows because budget and trying to attract new people to the space. If someone was hired to be backstage it would be okay because that person can deal with things.
Upstage, reserve
line sets for electrics, know that they will need enough clearance. Don't skimp on linesets upstage if you can help it. A space i'm working in purchased 5
line sets upstage and
dead hung 3 pipes for electrics. IT IS NOT ENOUGH. Unless you are willing to hire in a whole crew to work on electrics, you will only be causing continual pain if you dead hang an
electric, largely because it will be too tall for a ladder and you will need to go up and down in the genie across the damn thing 10-11 times which sucks when you are alone.
I've used tension grids before and I loved them - I would put a tension
grid over a
thrust and a tension
grid in the blackbox. That way you can add pipes where needed for lighting or hanging things down. I've been working in a
thrust space that they put in 3 catwalks over the
thrust and it just doesn't let you do everything you want. In that space, the directors love to have chandeliers hanging down, they love to
drop leaves and snow and
etc. I would tension the whole thing if possible, if not a
catwalk for the "front" light, and a tension over the
stage area + 5'.
With a
thrust, you'll want at least two
vom entrances that you can get to from backstage and from each other. A
trap room would also probably be nice. Steps on each side of the
thrust, plus you'll want to
purchase the staging option of making it so they can extend to completely
flat.
Make sure there is enough
power in your space and plan for _expansion_ Try and guess where you MAY need to go for future needs. There has only been ONE space that I have ever said "there is enough
power and lights here." They have been around for 20 years, have electrics 1 - 6, with an A
electric for each. Two sets of
cyc bays, tons of strip lights, and about twice the inventory of their rep
plot. The last show I worked there, we hung "all" of the lights in the
theatre, had
power to spare in most places. Pulled
power for others - but in the end, if the designer said "hrm, I think I'll need a light right there" we could still find one to hang for him.
A couple of spaces have nice large, easy to access from the
stage, lighting and sound storage closets.
Someone else mentioned lots of rooms for things you don't know you will need - there will be TONS of gear you will acquire over time. Eventually, you will not know where to shove all these marbles in your 300 seat bag. This can include but not limited to 3 grand pianos, two
marley carts, music stands, clip lights, strip lights, a
ground row, various
orchestra drums, stages, wood rack, pipe rack, sets of legs, full
curtains, various drops, and a whole bunch of other things.
OF COURSE this advice is all depending on what kind of space you are setting up. This is mostly my experience from semi-educational spaces where they are also trying to rent out the space so need to keep a lot of this gear on
hand all the time. But I agree with what others have said, seek out consultants. Push the issues you think you will have. Try and visit some of the bigger theatres in the area and talk to them about what they like and what they don't like,
theatre people do enjoy talking about their spaces and this can get your
foot in their doors to borrow things if you ever need to for that one gig.