Thank you all for your posts. By "neutrality," what sort of colors are you thinking? The school colors we use are navy blue, vegas gold, white and grey. Obviously there are different shades of grey, but do any of those stand out as either do use, or don't use? It is a high school
auditorium, built in the 50s. So, it is multi use. I have included a few pix, one of the
main floor, the other of the balcony. I am open to suggestions. Thanks again.
I would go for navy walls, but you might have compromises to make since controlling ambient light during performance is not the top priority for everyone at a high school (as evidenced by your operations manager wanting to "brighten it up" like it's a classroom). Maybe just navy on the walls that are perpendicular to the
stage edge, and a lighter grey on those sections that angle away from the
stage. Also, it's hard to see the front half of the
house from the pictures, but if that is all cinder
block then you'd probably benefit from some well-designed acoustic treatments, which can spiff up the walls with a more light-absorbent color at the same time, while perhaps being something more attractive to parties who don't understand why making everything dark is desirable.
That low ceiling could stay white to keep it from getting any more oppressive in that short space. At front of
house lighting positions, though, carrying the darker wall color onto the ceiling and any acoustic panels is a big plus to suck up the ambient light before it gets to bouncing all over the room. I can't see your lighting positions from the pictures, but just turn some
stage lights on and see how bright the ceiling glows. Might be an issue, might not. My
current space is all dark navy walls and ceiling, and is a pleasure to light in compared to the last place I was, which was beautiful but had off-white acoustic panels on the ceiling.
If it were my space, my first priority would be to black out that light wood
stage. But again, in a multi-use high school space some people might not want to do that.