Never let a school design a theatre... pt. 2

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The theatre my school had wasn't even a theatre until I got there. This room was an event type hall with a 30' wide x 12' high stage on one end. When I arrived the back of the stage was rotted and collapsed and the curtains were dry rotted and tattered. There were also no lights or supports. For the first show I just took down to curtains and used four t-stands with four PAR64s per stand running off DJ style dimmer packs that would trip the rooms ancient fuses every few minutes if we didn't get the perfect combination of outlets. After about a year of tireless work and fighting on my part as a student we got some new curtains, two dead hung battens (one over the stage and one over the audience), and some new electrical work. Since the batten over the stage was attached to a 2x4 spine on the plaster ceiling, we could only put 200lbs on it and the other one was too close to the stage so the lights were practically over the actors heads. In the end, I started bringing in my own equipment (at the time I did a lot of freelance lighting) and I would set up two 30' wide trusses over the audience and, since the schools system had all pars except for 4 S4 jrs, I would bring in some movers and S4s of my own. Eventually I got the school to pay me a little bit as a sort of rental fee for all this gear but I still would have rathered avoid a several day rigging and hanging fest just to get our lights up before each show.
 
Some "professional" theatres are just as bad. Most so-called designers couldn't build a working outhouse! How about this: a renovation of a 1930's grand movie theatre with 600 seats, a 36' x 48' floor level thrust stage, no backstage, no wings, and load in up a fire excape to a 6' square landing and turn right through a 3' x 7' exterior door...into the back of the house with a 2 story elevation? Or use their 6' square x 8' high freight elevator into the lobby? This place cost MILLIONS and is somewhere in DC!
 
2 words:
NO BUDGET!

This year, for the lights budget, I got 4-25' 4 pin xlr for gel scrollers
- End of Budget

A college theatre program in a gynasatheatre. 20 instruments, 15 residential lawn flood lights and a couple of gel scrollers. OOO, and ten strands of christmas lights!

Wait a second, its a 60x30' procenium.

To get the lift (Handy Herman) on stage, you use an atv winch on a pair of ghetto tracks in a stairwell. First, you manover the thing between the dimmer rack and the staircase, let out some of the winch, push the lift till it is sitting on the bolts of tracks, put some metal blocks underneath so that the other end gets high enough to clear the top of the stairs, then winch away. second, the winch sounds pathetic, two the lights directly overhead are dead, so you get to do the previous steps in semi-darkness (go flashlights).
 
i've got a good one:

the main theater at my former college, The MacConnell, is only about 6 years old. literally the whole thing, ground up, is 6. we've got good lights, good equipment, but the building is awful. when it was 4 years old, i first noticed the gigantic crack on the hallway-side of the SL wall. this crack was formed waaaaay up at the top of the theater. so it had probably been then since the building was finished. the crack is from the building settling, the disturbing part is what's happening to form this settling crack. now, a 6 year old building should settle all together, not The Mac. no one realized that once the stage is being used there will be massively more weight on it! so it's structured improperly for the weight on it, and now is sinking into the ground faster than the rest of the arts center. better yet, we had asked for a metal roof. well around the edges there is metal, it all looks metal, but above large chunks of the building, it's tar paper, tar paper doesn't do well with ice, which is what you get on large flat-roofed buildings. combine ice and tar paper and eventually the tar paper decides it doesn't want to work anymore, and you wind up with a flooded backstage area. in particular, the ATD's office, the room that houses the piano that is worth more than our lives, the entire blackbox (which was going to have a visiting professor from Oxford teaching in it that day) will flood with at least 4 inches of water. oh yeah, and a year later we find a new leak, at the back of the Mac, and 6 months later we find where that leak left all the water...UNDER THE STAGE! we called it Lake MacConnell, or the Pond. rip off the thrust/orchestra pit elevator section and pump out 300 GALLONS of water! and fans and heaters running under the stage for the next 2 months. the only time they went off was during certain, quiet performances, loud ones, the fans stayed on. oh yeah, this all still hasn't been repaired, just temporarily fixed, the ATD's office is still an obstacle course of buckets when it rains and there's a little piece of caulking in the big Lake MacConnell making leak...and it still leaks a little, as in, the concrete under the stage is wet nearly all the time. the black mold that will form if this is ever ignored will be just wonderful...

so you're theater sucks? at least you don't have hundreds of gallons of rainwater building up under your main stage for about 5 years......
 
That's one of the "good" things about here all the theater is incadecent lights. "good" in that they are dimmable, but are energy hogs. It takes more power to run the theater than it does to run our entire E Building (4 floors, all classrooms, heating, computers, ect..)

It would suck to be in CA though since they're trying to ban incadecent lights.

that why any contractor with a brain would install both :) we have incadesent house light fixtures in 4 "hanging chandlier type fixtures" but we have 12 Mercury Vapor (i think, think stadium lights) lights up in the high ceiling as Works. we also use Halogen lamps in our house lights. Little pricier but better cost/benift/life ratio.
 
i've got a good one:

the main theater at my former college, The MacConnell, is only about 6 years old. literally the whole thing, ground up, is 6. we've got good lights, good equipment, but the building is awful. when it was 4 years old, i first noticed the gigantic crack on the hallway-side of the SL wall. this crack was formed waaaaay up at the top of the theater. so it had probably been then since the building was finished. the crack is from the building settling, the disturbing part is what's happening to form this settling crack. now, a 6 year old building should settle all together, not The Mac. no one realized that once the stage is being used there will be massively more weight on it! so it's structured improperly for the weight on it, and now is sinking into the ground faster than the rest of the arts center. better yet, we had asked for a metal roof. well around the edges there is metal, it all looks metal, but above large chunks of the building, it's tar paper, tar paper doesn't do well with ice, which is what you get on large flat-roofed buildings. combine ice and tar paper and eventually the tar paper decides it doesn't want to work anymore, and you wind up with a flooded backstage area. in particular, the ATD's office, the room that houses the piano that is worth more than our lives, the entire blackbox (which was going to have a visiting professor from Oxford teaching in it that day) will flood with at least 4 inches of water. oh yeah, and a year later we find a new leak, at the back of the Mac, and 6 months later we find where that leak left all the water...UNDER THE STAGE! we called it Lake MacConnell, or the Pond. rip off the thrust/orchestra pit elevator section and pump out 300 GALLONS of water! and fans and heaters running under the stage for the next 2 months. the only time they went off was during certain, quiet performances, loud ones, the fans stayed on. oh yeah, this all still hasn't been repaired, just temporarily fixed, the ATD's office is still an obstacle course of buckets when it rains and there's a little piece of caulking in the big Lake MacConnell making leak...and it still leaks a little, as in, the concrete under the stage is wet nearly all the time. the black mold that will form if this is ever ignored will be just wonderful...

so you're theater sucks? at least you don't have hundreds of gallons of rainwater building up under your main stage for about 5 years......

They should close it down open a new indoor pool, yeah rain water sucks. We went through the same thing... our TD at the time decided to ignore the problem and just clear out the pit every spring. It took a student (me) to tell the Janitorial staff and they replaced the sump pump... Guess what no more leaks. In the Pit anyway, elsewhere the add on sections of our stage were not properly sealed (something i Personally will be doing this summer) so we just have custom build troughs for those doorways setup all spring.

Yay for low bid....
 
More of a city problem, but our new studio leaks also.
It's a found space in what was a printing plant in the basement. Being an old building, it used to have under-sidewalk vaults. The city didn't like this (don't know why), so they put up CMU walls at the sidewalk-building line. Problem is, they set them on top of the existing slab and didn't seal them. Every time it rains water seeps in around the base of these walls, from the vault side into the studio. It's wet enough in the vault that the hydrostatic pressure forces out any caulk we try and put down. We're currently trying to find a solution, but so far all we have are "Wet Floor" signs. :(
 
More of a city problem, but our new studio leaks also.
It's a found space in what was a printing plant in the basement. Being an old building, it used to have under-sidewalk vaults. The city didn't like this (don't know why), so they put up CMU walls at the sidewalk-building line. Problem is, they set them on top of the existing slab and didn't seal them. Every time it rains water seeps in around the base of these walls, from the vault side into the studio. It's wet enough in the vault that the hydrostatic pressure forces out any caulk we try and put down. We're currently trying to find a solution, but so far all we have are "Wet Floor" signs. :(

can you put a sump in?
 
Sadly, no sump. The size of the room, and lack of access to a floor drain or drain line, makes it infeasible. A French, weeping tile - type, drain would be best, but the closest sanitary line is at least 30' from the nearest point of the walls in question. We would end up ripping out the two walls for the drain (80'+) and then running across the room (another 30'), and even then we might be too low to tie into the sanitary line (the line is only 9'-10' below street level, we have some floor drains on the far side of the building running into a sump pit). Tying into the storm lines is impossible, they run across the ceiling of this room.

Sorry for the long reply, but it's been bothering me and I am trying to find a solution...
 
For the most part, my school's theatre is a dream: light-wise we have new ETC inventory, intelligent lights, and an ion to control it all. We have full fly and a fair amount of space in the scene shot and the doors from the shop to the stage are floor to ceiling.
But it's in the details where things go wrong. The theatre's undergone a series of renovations (mostly because of add-ons to the building, not changes to the theatre itself). Almost everything had to be adjusted at one point or another and the people who did the work were extremely sloppy. For example: the HVAC system was installed without first having taken dimensions of the place, resulting in it being too low in the house/over the pit. To compensate, they did what they thought was the smart solution of lowering the large acoustic panels. Unfortunately, lowering them means that we can never have a live orchestra in the pit, because that's all the audience will be able to hear. Also, we have an extremely high proscenium, but we can never use it, since the panels now sit below the top of it.
Another example: they had to remount the speaker system. In doing so, not only did they screw up the cabling, but they were too lazy to run the cables up to the grid. Instead, they decided it would be a good idea to drill a hole in our proscenium (our black plaster proscenium, so now we're left with giant white holes) to run the cables.
Another example, done by the same people as above: our fly loft is awesome. The battens are weirdly spaced, but it's much better than other schools. Except the weights. They gave us the weights of the wrong dimensions--they're too wide--so if the bricks aren't lined up perfectly on neighbouring battens than they catch.
Finally, this is nobody's fault per se, but it's something that needs to get fixed. Many years ago, a student's arm got caught in the pit. He lost it. One would think, after that incident, that they would fix the pit and get one that was safer? Nope. They shifted it back to be centred again and called it a day. The pit now is impossible to level out (stage left is higher than stage right) and is operated to this day without any safety mechanisms.
 
Finally, this is nobody's fault per se, but it's something that needs to get fixed. Many years ago, a student's arm got caught in the pit. He lost it. One would think, after that incident, that they would fix the pit and get one that was safer? Nope. They shifted it back to be centred again and called it a day. The pit now is impossible to level out (stage left is higher than stage right) and is operated to this day without any safety mechanisms.

Just... sheared off? *shudder*
 
Our place isn't the worst by any stretch. It isn't the best but I feel lucky to have what we do.

I am trying to get a genie for our FOH electric though, but hey, who doesnt love ladders? :)
We have half flys that only go to a few feet above the proscenium..even though the towers are taller than that? Not sure why..think our arbors arent placed right, but ah well. At least we have counterwheights.
Two boarders and the mid traveler are dead hung. Boarders I could care less, although a pain to clean. Mid way, I wouldn't care if it wasn't like, a foot off the deck X_X.
Rear trav and one of the legs needs to be sewn here and there. Sound system is being replaced this summer so wont even go there. It isn't to bad but the center cluster is blown and the cabling is unshielded and hums when FOH channels are active.
No booth, but with the grant we got one is being built, plus a followspot, our place has never seen one yet, should be a wonderful addition.
And, I don't really have any other complaints other than it would be nice to have a full fly system, but hey. Im happy with what I have. Least we have a solid roof..Unlike the rest of the school!:p
And our roof smoke hatches dont leak thank god.

Oh, well, I guess it annoys me that the dimmer rack and amp rack are on stage right. This wouldnt annoy me if we didnt have a dimmer room...no lie. We have a dimmer room, but the dimmers are on stage right instead.
And I guess it is a downer having a full Colortran setup. Personally, I have never had a problem with their fixtures and they seem pretty rugged and they have never broken on me. The i96 rack we have is perfectly fine, I keep it as clear as I can, clean the door filter and it has never overheated. Wish we had more wired dimmers though, we have like, 30 just sitting there in unwired channels. Maybe we can get some floor pockets put in, shouldn't cost to much.
But..oh boy oh boy our lightboard..Colortran Status 24/48. Wouldn't be to bad if the que system worked..or the screen isnt at full dark sicne the rheostat broke... or it saved when turned off..or had more than 48 control channels since we have 74 channels and 52 to control..And maybe if it didnt say 'Colortran' on the front :eek:

Funny thing..kinda..was rehanging lights the otherday, when sotpatching, since its a one dimmer per channel thing, gotta love CT, I realised I had EXACTLY enough channels for the lights I hung.


(About Genies, How much do they go for and any info on them? I know they are a sort of scissor lift but dont know much at all about them. Wonder if it would fit on the wheelchair ramp xD)
 
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I have a theory as to why there are these horror stories here: public schools do not care about art or creativity in general, and that's honestly what I feel. They're much more likely to give money to some stupid sports thing. Explains why the "education" system doesn't educate much at all. Sorry if that's not PC but it's true.
 
I have a theory as to why there are these horror stories here: public schools do not care about art or creativity in general, and that's honestly what I feel. They're much more likely to give money to some stupid sports thing. Explains why the "education" system doesn't educate much at all. Sorry if that's not PC but it's true.
You are certainly entitled to express yourself, however I am living proof that what you posted is not true, but simply an opinion.
I have three theatres in my school, all fully equipped with great toys. I have a large enough budget to do productions right, a principal who fully supports the arts and, most importantly, a huge passion for what I do. My public school kids are just fine, thank you. (As are the students in the districts around me.)
In my opinion, if a fine arts program can't raise $1500 for scaffolding, then perhaps new leadership is required.
Sports has money because they make money and raise money. There are large numbers of kids participating and every game is like a musical where the entire family pays to get in. Ever seen an athletics booster club? They're huge around here and they're constantly raising money. I don't think they get more than they deserve based on the number of students they service.
There can't possibly be an administrator left who hasn't seen the data which makes a direct correlation between academic performance and participation in the fine arts. If your local school district isn't acting on that data, then you have a beef with your local public schools. Not all public schools are artistic wastelands.
I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but attacking all public schools because of some stories on an Internet forum shows a lack of critical thinking and a complete disregard for all the great teachers out there (and right here!) who truly care about students.
 
I think a lot of teachers do care and there are public schools that do care and that do pay attention, and my statement wasn't to say that I have a problem with all teachers, but I've seen quite a lot of people that simply don't care. It's art, so it's not "academic" and therefore I've seen so many people take the attitude of "so why should we support it?". Any school that you've described - even with money as an issue, they should at least be open to the fact that some people do like to do it - is an example of a good school, but I honestly do see many schools as being precisely that, basically a wasteland. There do however exist places that are not like that and I wasn't trying to imply otherwise.

And also my judging is not based just off of things I read on the internet - that in itself is a pretty strong assumption. My evidence is not solely derived from internet sources.
 
I have a theory as to why there are these horror stories here: public schools do not care about art or creativity in general, and that's honestly what I feel. They're much more likely to give money to some stupid sports thing. Explains why the "education" system doesn't educate much at all. Sorry if that's not PC but it's true.

I agree when I see how much stuff the sports program gets compared to the drama program. Especially being someone being a techie.
 
I think a lot of teachers do care and there are public schools that do care and that do pay attention, and my statement wasn't to say that I have a problem with all teachers, but I've seen quite a lot of people that simply don't care. It's art, so it's not "academic" and therefore I've seen so many people take the attitude of "so why should we support it?". Any school that you've described - even with money as an issue, they should at least be open to the fact that some people do like to do it - is an example of a good school, but I honestly do see many schools as being precisely that, basically a wasteland. There do however exist places that are not like that and I wasn't trying to imply otherwise.

And also my judging is not based just off of things I read on the internet - that in itself is a pretty strong assumption. My evidence is not solely derived from internet sources.

Now what you say about schools not seeing artistic as education is false most schools actually recognize arts more than say automotive or carpentry fields or "tech" fields. The only reason that it seems that sports get more money is because they end up having about 4 times as many students involved. It all comes down in the public school to booster clubs. Our theater who has never used any of the booster club resources literally in a month got the funding for a new spot light.

While some districts may seem to place emphasis on sports rather than the arts is based upon the students. Leader ship comes from within If you have a weak arts program then you don't get as much attention. Such as when our theater about 2 years ago started losing focus and started falling back into a routine, we lost a bunch of following. Then when we started adding more people using more of our budget and adding more artistic elements we got more and more of a response from the students which in turn gave us more and more response from other faculty.

So instead of blaming the district as a whole really focus it down to the people responsible (there are federal laws in place on schools that require them to spend certain x Dollars on different departments.)
 
And also my judging is not based just off of things I read on the internet - that in itself is a pretty strong assumption. My evidence is not solely derived from internet sources.

Not an assumption at all. It's based on what you posted.

I have a theory as to why there are these horror stories here: public schools do not care about art or creativity in general, and that's honestly what I feel.

You said your theory explained why these horror stories are here. I took you at your word.
 
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