curtis73
Well-Known Member
A little backstory:
If you look back at the photo of the space, you'll notice that on the left is a proscenium. This used to be a proscenium house and the floor you see used to be 42" down and raked up as it went to the right for audience seating. 20 years ago, we started doing all of our shows at a bigger venue downtown and converted this to a production/rehearsal space and (not me) liquidated our entire compliment of lighting and audio. The powers that be then suddenly realized their folly because it limited us to grand productions like musicals. Hard to do Fences on a 40' proscenium in a 700-seat house. So, we started doing two big musicals downtown and 4 plays/1 musical in the space you see above. When I inherited the space 6 years ago, I had nothing. I was renting a dimmer rack and fixtures for every show and we had to limit shows to something we could do without amplification.
Since then I've been able to get grants for LED fixtures, ION console, the seating and risers, and some good used audio including a configurable cluster of four cabinets above the grid (two of which have blown horns, but they were free). The cabinets hang from swivel links so if I do one seating section they all point that way. If I do the 3/4 like you see I just turn the two outside cabinets east and west. For in-the-round I can just turn one of the center speakers 180 degrees. I'm also about to pull the trigger on a Yamaha digital desk, and 8 more channels of ULX wireless body mics bringing my total to 24 channels. Long, slow process, but we're finally mostly self-sufficient.
But, the name of the game for me is to do stuff as much DIY as I can. I'm hoping to fab something up with existing stuff instead of waiting for grant season, writing a grant, waiting for a decision, etc.
If you look back at the photo of the space, you'll notice that on the left is a proscenium. This used to be a proscenium house and the floor you see used to be 42" down and raked up as it went to the right for audience seating. 20 years ago, we started doing all of our shows at a bigger venue downtown and converted this to a production/rehearsal space and (not me) liquidated our entire compliment of lighting and audio. The powers that be then suddenly realized their folly because it limited us to grand productions like musicals. Hard to do Fences on a 40' proscenium in a 700-seat house. So, we started doing two big musicals downtown and 4 plays/1 musical in the space you see above. When I inherited the space 6 years ago, I had nothing. I was renting a dimmer rack and fixtures for every show and we had to limit shows to something we could do without amplification.
Since then I've been able to get grants for LED fixtures, ION console, the seating and risers, and some good used audio including a configurable cluster of four cabinets above the grid (two of which have blown horns, but they were free). The cabinets hang from swivel links so if I do one seating section they all point that way. If I do the 3/4 like you see I just turn the two outside cabinets east and west. For in-the-round I can just turn one of the center speakers 180 degrees. I'm also about to pull the trigger on a Yamaha digital desk, and 8 more channels of ULX wireless body mics bringing my total to 24 channels. Long, slow process, but we're finally mostly self-sufficient.
But, the name of the game for me is to do stuff as much DIY as I can. I'm hoping to fab something up with existing stuff instead of waiting for grant season, writing a grant, waiting for a decision, etc.
