Lecture 25 - Theatre Architecture and Performance Spaces

Today's subject is theatre architecture and performance spaces. Now, most of us probably, and certainly many of you, don't often think about what a theatre looks like. Well, of course, you know what a theatre looks like. The theatre building, to most of us, means what we usually call a proscenium theatre. It is so called because the proscenium arch, or the opening of the frame which frames the performance space, is what we call a proscenium. So, therefore, when you think of a theatre, you walk in and you see an auditorium with seats all arranged in rows facing a performance space, and that performance space has a frame around it. In fact, probably 90% of the theatre buildings in this country are what we call proscenium theatre. Actually, this particular form of theatre architecture was developed in Italy in the early 17th century and very quickly had swept across Europe and then by the end of the century into England and became the dominant form of theatre architecture, the one that we still use 300 or more 400 years later. It is also sometimes called a fourth wall theatre. And that is if you think of this in terms of that you're looking at an interior and what you see on stage is an interior set and there are three walls. And then what happens is that fourth wall has been removed, or you might think of it as being a piece of glass. Through that invisible fourth wall, the audience looks and watches and observes what goes on on stage. So, let's look then first at this proscenium theatre. And if you look at the diagram that you have that's in front of you, then I think you can begin to understand this a little better. So, let's look at and talk about first, what are the advantages of a proscenium theatre? What are the advantages of this theatre that you are usually that you are used to when you come to see a performance? First, all audience members are facing the same way. They're sitting in rows one next to the other. And all audience members are looking at the same thing, at the same way, toward the stage. Therefore, within the stage picture itself, specific focus is easy to achieve. It is easy for the director to arrange in some way to set up a picture in such a way that the audience knows where to look, the audience knows what to see, what to listen to. Here, most of the stage workings, that is all of backstage, is fairly easily masked. In fact, probably most of you don't even think much about what goes on backstage or what happens because all of these workings are somewhere the other with the use of curtains and draperies and the proscenium arch itself and the wall then that is beside the proscenium arch. All of this is masking for that backstage area. And so, therefore, you don't see anything and magically things happen onstage. For realistic interior settings, look especially good behind a fourth wall. And so, therefore, they are always quite pleasing. And 5.a detached attitude or an aesthetic distance is easy to achieve in that the audience knows where it sits. And that is you come into the proscenium theatre, you know this is where I'm sitting, and you look and you know that's where the performers are. And so, therefore, there's a little sort of almost immediately a detachment that begins to take place here. The disadvantage is in many cases a proscenium arch theatre can be quite large. Sometimes theatres can see as many as four thousand people. Now, if you're sitting in the proscenium theatre in a four thousand seat house, I can assure you if you are on the back row or anywhere near the back row, you are at this point a very long way from the performance space. It's an awful long way down there and you have to peer mightily in order to see what is going on. So, therefore, proscenium theatres can be large, they can be difficult to see in. If you're nearer the front, then obviously this particular thing is not bothersome. But it certainly can be. Good examples of this would be if you know the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, which indeed does... have 4,000 or more seats in it, the Midland theatre in Kansas City which has about 3,000 seats or so in it, or even in Springfield the Juanita K Hammonds hall for Performing Arts which has 2,200 seats in it. So if you have experienced any of those, then you have some idea of the disadvantage if you are nearer the back of the auditorium. The other disadvantage is that in some ways, this detachment, which may indeed be anesthetic one, can in some cases become more than that and the audience can find itself sort of being "non in" in the performance itself. The second form of theatre that I'm going to talk about is called the Arena Stage. It is a circle. In fact, this is probably the original performance arrangement. At whatever point in some dim brain at some point, somebody said, "Let me show you this." Then in that particular case, what happened is the audience probably sat in a circle around the individual, and in that case, we have this original performance space, the circle, the arena theatre. If you look at the diagram, you can begin to see here what we're talking about. And of course, it's something you're fairly used to because in a much larger case, basketball arenas are usually this way, and you sit on all four sides frequently in watching basketball games or in some cases, football games or whatever. So this idea of being a member of the audience and sitting in the round is not an unusual one. The advantages for theatre, however, are that it does mean that in most cases, the audience can be closer to the performance area and more intimacy can be achieved. One can have, if one is using all four sides and there are seats all the way around, then if you have 400 people on each side, then that last row on any one side is still going to be a lot closer than it would be if you were in a proscenium house and you're seating 1,600 people. So there is an advantage there. More intimacy can be achieved. More to more audiences can be seen in closer proximity to the performance area. Three, the productions are usually less costly, since the settings are limited in what can be put within the performance space. One cannot put huge extravagant sets into an arena stage because the audience always has to be able to see all of the performance area all the time. So, therefore, it just means that from a production standpoint, it doesn't cost as much. What are the disadvantages? The disadvantages are that at some point or another, the actors will have their back turned to you for some part of the time. There's just no way an actor standing in a circle is not, in some way, going to be facing one direction. In whatever direction that actor is going to be facing, then obviously the back is going to be to the other. It becomes one of the things in directing an arena that both actors and director have to be very aware of, and they have to be sure they keep making adjustments so as to keep finding reasons why the characters can move in such a way that the back of the same actor is not always to the audience. Some audience members frequently, however, find that a disadvantage for them is that in looking through the performance space, they can see on the other side other audience members. Now, yes, you have in a proscenium theatre, the audience sitting beside you, and you may have people sitting in front of you. But it's different when you are looking through that performance space and you can see on the other side the faces of the other audience members. You can see their reactions, and some people find this quite distracting. Three, production details are limited, as I have already said. You cannot have extravagant sets, and so therefore, some audience people find this to be a disadvantage. They prefer to have more spectacle. They prefer having more visible evidence of a set on stage than one can have in an arena. This particular form has lost popularity today. It was a form that was greatly touted in the mid-20th century and for a period in there. There were a number of theaters that were built and are still in use today. Perhaps the most famous is the Arena Theater in Washington DC, which has a thrust stage. The thrust stage has a long history and was originally used by the Greeks in the fifth century BC. It was also used by Shakespeare in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. While the popularity of the proscenium arch has dominated in the second half of the 20th century, the thrust stage has begun to be revived. The Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis is one of the best-known theaters in the country that uses the thrust stage. I have included some slides for you to see, which show the audience, the thrust stage, and the view from different angles across the performance space. As you can see from the diagram, the proximity between the performers and the audience is closer in a thrust stage compared to a proscenium theater. Additionally, there can be a greater number of seats closer to the stage. Unlike in an arena theater, part of the backstage area may be masked, which allows for a more traditional performance space. The thrust stage is suited for plays and speaking performances, as it was the type of theater that Shakespeare wrote for. Watching a performance in this kind of theater creates a unique experience that cannot be replicated in a proscenium theater. There is something special about an actor thrusting out into the audience and speaking lines of great dramatic literature. However, there are also disadvantages to the thrust stage. At times, the actors will have their backs to some portion of the audience, especially those sitting further back in the theater. This is something that needs to be considered and adjusted to. Additionally, during musical performances, there can be challenges. Musicals are typically created with the idea of being performed in a proscenium theater, with set changes and other magical elements in mind. In conclusion, while there are pros and cons to the thrust stage, it continues to be used in theaters today and offers a unique experience for both performers and audience members. Without and with outside the sight of the audience, whereas on a thrust stage, it becomes much more difficult to do them and one has to think through how the musical will be done quite differently from the proscenium theatre. The other disadvantage, again here, is that audience members can see other face front in the audience as they look across the performance area, and they find this distracting in some way or the other. The next form of theater I want to talk about is one which is called black box or Studio Theatre. A black box theater is a space that is created in order to give performances in, and this space has no fixed audience performance or performer indication. That is, it is just a room. It is a room in which a performance takes place. It is a room that is going to have a grid overhead so that lights can be put on it and the light instruments can then be set up so as to light any area of that room. But there is no particular indication or space that says this is where one acts, this is where one performs. In fact, it is absolutely totally flexible. So when the artistic team is assembled for a particular production, one of the first things they have to begin to determine is what is the arrangement that we are going to make in this particular production between the performer and the audience, where is the audience going to sit, where is the performer going to act? In some way. I recently saw a production in a black box theater where the black box was set up as if it were a long rectangle. Along the two long sides of the rectangle, the audience sat in rows, and the performance space was the sort of twelfth that went down the middle between the two sides of the audience. Next time if I go back and see another production in that particular box theater, then in that case, there may be a totally different arrangement and it will not look that way at all. In fact, of course, this is the great advantage for black box: total flexibility. Disadvantages are going to vary from production to production, and it just depends on what the particular arrangement is. A good example of a black box theater is the Hotchner Studio Theatre at Washington University in St. Louis. Lastly, I want to talk about environmental theater. Now, this is probably a style rather than an architectural form, but it refers to a total installation in which the entire theater is given over to the production. An environment is created for the audience to be a part of that world, as well as there is an environment over the part of the performance area for the performer. Cats in London and New York, Starlight Express in London, and the productions of the Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. All of these are created in a Total Environment theater, and that is the performance space is created in such a way audience and actors all live in a total environment for that particular production. It's a rather extreme form and it's not seen a great deal because obviously, it is very expensive and it's something one can do only if you think our production is going to run for a very long time. But if you ever have a chance to see any of the environmental productions, and especially the Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, I certainly encourage you to do so. Now we are going to show you four performance spaces in Springfield and talk about them. This is the JQH Hammons Hall for Performing Arts on the corner of John Q Hammons Parkway and between cherry and Elm Street here in Springfield, Missouri. This particular theater was built in the early 1990s and it is the largest formal theater structure in Springfield. It is used for bringing in various productions called road shows, touring productions from across the country. It is used by local organizations to present productions or concerts. It is the home of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra and it is used by many other groups including the music department at the SMS on SMS campus and once a year. Usually, a musical production by the Department of Theatre and Dance. This is a view that you might have as you come in from the lobby into the auditorium and find your seats here on the first floor. I guess one thing that I should point out because sometimes people get confused by it. Usually, in most theaters, the first floor, which is where the view you are looking at from now, is called the orchestra. Consequently, if somebody at the box office says to you, "Do you want to sit in the orchestra?", they are not referring to whether you want to sit down where the musical instruments are, but instead are referring to those seats that make up the first floor of the auditorium. Now, the view which you have here is looking at the stage house. This is the stage house as you normally don't see it, meaning it is completely bare. There are no sets, almost no curtains, except for a few overhead. This is the stage stripped. However, if you look closely, you can see a suggestion of a framework that is framing this particular stage. It's not a very strong one, but it is there. When there are stage productions here, one does have a proscenium arch feeling, but it is not a strong or predominant one, as it frequently is in many other theaters. One reason for the suggestion of, rather than a very strongly defined proscenium arch, is that this is a multi-purpose hall. In addition to theater productions, it also hosts orchestra concerts, soloist concerts, and dance presentations. Therefore, the stage is arranged in such a way that it can take on different looks and appearances as needed. What you may not be able to see, but is behind me all the way upstage, is a back wall that appears to be acoustical panels. These panels can be brought out into the stage house and set up to turn the space into a concert hall. The panels help shoot the sound out to the audience when the orchestra completely fills the stage. This is one way in which the hall accommodates its various functions. The opening of this proscenium arch is quite large, about 70 feet in width. Most theater productions that come into this auditorium prefer a smaller opening. They bring in what is called a show proscenium or a false proscenium to cut down the opening to a more suitable size. The false proscenium is not rigid and not the real one, but it allows the framework for the show to be presented in a smaller space. We have some pictures that we're going to put in here for you to see how this bare stage with its large opening can be manipulated to be much smaller. Of course, one of the reasons why it needs to be made smaller is that scenery has to fill the acting space, and the larger the space, the more scenery it will require. Cut down. If this framework is cut down in some way, then it means it doesn't take up as much space as it would if the production was trying to fill the entire framework. This is, by far, the largest formal theater house in Springfield. It has approximately 2,200 seats: 1,100 of them are in the orchestra, another 900 are in the first balcony, and the second balcony, or the boutique balcony as it is called, has another 250 seats. This is a view that most of you will probably not have and that is, at this point, the camera is on stage and it is now looking out into the auditorium. So, unless you're a performer, it's not the view that you usually see. But you are now able to see how this particular theater looks. It's something I do encourage, however, all of you to learn to do, and that is, whenever I am in a theater, wherever I am - New York City, Minneapolis, Boston, Chicago, or Springfield, Missouri - if it's a theater I have not been in before, then one of the things I will always do, if I'm in the audience, at some point either before the show begins or during the intermission, I will come all the way down here to the front of this stage house, turn around, and then look at it just to see what it looks like. And because I want to see, what does it look like from where I may not be on stage, but I do want to see what does it look like when I am standing here and, at this point, can see the orchestra, the mezzanine, and the petite balcony as they are called in this particular theater. Also, if you look to the stage right up here, you can see the box where we had an earlier shot, and you can begin to see then what it's like looking from the auditorium up to that particular box. We are now looking at the Landers Theatre in downtown Springfield on Walnut Street. It was built in 1909 as a house for legitimate theater - legitimate theater meaning touring productions of plays, most of which came from New York but maybe other possible sources - and as a part of the vaudeville circuit. It continued then to be a theater until the 1920s when it began to be, also continued to be, a part-time theater and a movie house. And then, very gradually, as in, as is true, as was true of many theaters across the country, by the 1930s, it was converted into a full-time movie house and remained so until the late 1960s. In 1970, it was bought by the community theater, the Springfield Little Theatre, and it then became the permanent home for that organization. We are now in the interior of the Landers theater, and it is in this space that one can see the truest proscenium arch in Springfield. That is, if you look here to my right and then simply go up, all the way across, and follow and come down on the left, one can certainly see that there is a very definite framework. And one can see that framework, and that it is very specific, and in this particular case, very ornate. Now, this is very characteristic of a theater that was built, as we said, in 1909. And so, consequently, this theater has been, within the last 15 years or so, restored with a great deal of historical accuracy. Starting about 15 years ago, the Springfield Little Theatre organization brought in some historical reconstructionists from St. Louis who then began poking around in the theater and examining records, trying to find out what this theater looked like when it opened in 1909. And so, at that point, they went in, got paint chips, and all kinds of things, and began to be able to say, "This is what the theater was like." And so, what you're seeing now is what we believe to be a fairly accurate rendering of what this theater looked like at the time it opened. So, therefore, yes, the proscenium arch was indeed gold. Gilt you see here, there were indeed the masks here. Lion mask that you see, the colors that you see in the proscenium arch and in the boxes that are on the right and left are indeed the color, even down to the seats themselves. It was discovered what the original fabric looked like that covered those particular seats, and that fabric was found. And then a few years ago, they even managed to dig around in some of the upper reaches of the theater and found some of the original carpet and who had manufactured that carpet. The manufacturer was in England, and when they contacted the company, which was still in business in England, lo and behold, there was an order on file for the Landis Theatre 1909, Springfield, Missouri. Specifically, what that carpet was and what the pattern was. And so, at that point, the company went back and reproduced the carpet. The new carpet which one sees here in the theater is a reproduction of the carpet which was here in 1909. This is, in many ways, indeed a jewel of a theater. It seats approximately 400 people downstairs and about 250 in its balcony, so almost 650 seats. Wherever you are in this theater, one can easily see that this theater was bought by the Springfield Little Theatre in 1970 and is now the permanent home where the productions of the community theater are presented. This is the Vandervoort Center Theatre. It is a small theater on the fourth floor of the Vandervoort Center Building, which is next door to the Landers Theatre. The building was originally built in 1905 as a Masonic Temple, and the first three floors of the building served as retail establishments and offices. It is on the fourth floor that the Masons used this particular building. On one-half of the floor is a ballroom, and on the other half of the floor was this small theater. This is the theater in which they did their rites, installations, and other kinds of formal ceremonies that go on within the Masons. After the Masons left the building, it was bought by a developer for downtown Springfield. This particular theater space was then rented out starting in the mid-1990s by Lou Shafer, who now runs it as an experimental theater. It attempts to offer programs and productions that one might not see otherwise in other places in Springfield or produced by other organizations in Springfield. Now what makes this particular theater quite interesting is that it does have a proscenium arch. If you look, you can see there is a square arch here, and there is a stage that the Masons used and which can be used for theater productions. But one of the things that makes this particular theater interesting is that it has some flexibilities which are not otherwise available. Where I'm standing here on this floor of the auditorium, this sometimes becomes an acting space itself. Productions either don't remain on stage up here or they come off, and sometimes it happens that these two rows of seats here can disappear completely. Even the first or second riser can also be gone so that a number of those seats can all go. They can be put around the perimeters so that then one can build this stage out and it can become a kind of thrust stage, or simply the actors can come off the stage and they can act here. Now you may say, "Well, why do that?" Among other things, of course, what it does is it brings obvious proximity to the performer and the audience members quite closer together, so that depending on the kind of production that one might want to do, then in this particular theatre there is a flexibility. One can begin to intermingle very much with what is acting space because of the way the aisles come in. One can act in the aisles themselves, one can come and make entrances and exits in the aisles, or one can come out and act in this space. Thus, one can create a quite different kind of atmosphere, quite a different kind of physical relationship between performer and audience. When the performer is simply to stay up on stage, there begins to be a very definite different kind of relationship that happens with a performer. When you're up there and the audience is down there, there's a geographic distance here. To some extent, the proscenium arch can, in fact, almost act as a kind of geographic barrier. But as soon as the performer begins to break through that arch, which is what the lip of this stage allows, one begins to break through that barrier. One can then come down the steps and be much closer to the audience. Obviously, at this point, the physical relationship and the intimacy that can exist between the two can be presented quite differently in this theatre from almost any other theatre space in Springfield. So, for that reason, it is as a production space, a place that a lot of theatre people like to work because they have that flexibility that becomes a part of the decision when one begins to decide on doing a production. Then the director begins to make some decisions about what kind of relationship, physical relationship, geographical relationship do I want to establish between the audience and the performer. This theatre space opens up possibilities that otherwise would not be available. This is Kogarah theatre in Craig Hall on the SMS campus, and it was built in the late 1960s. In many ways, it pretty much reflects a number of the thoughts of that day. That is, it is a proscenium arch theatre. If you look, you can see that here over there is the wall or the arch going up, and then there's a concrete pillar across the top. Then there's the same thing over on the other side, and then, of course, the masking curtain which can lower in and out and adjust the height of the arch in whatever way. So thus, when one wants to form the square, the framework and the stage picture then go completely behind and upstage. Here, we have this very definite physical arch or, in this case, a square frame through which we look at the production. In this particular case, this does have a very large apron on it. This can be, this is a hydraulic lift, it can become a stage, it can become an orchestra pit. So, with the push of a button, it may go down to a lower level and at that point become that. Or, as it frequently can be, it can become a part of the stage action itself. If you look right and left in this direction, you can see that there are some side stages that sort of come out here, and to some extent, sort of surround the audience. These are all audience seats here. So this was a kind of compromise that was made at the point it was designed. Instead of just having a proscenium arch theatre and nothing else, and that framework, there is an attempt here at least to get more acting space that comes out, gets closer to the audience. Especially when one is doing say, the plays of Shakespeare, and, in that particular case, we know that his plays were written for a stage that thrusts out into the audience and that then the audience sort of sat around. So, to some extent, to give us some idea of that particular feeling, then this theatre was designed to... Capture that, so, well, yes, it's mainly a proscenium theatre. However, it also has certain characteristics that allow it to be used and certainly bring the performer and the audience members into close proximity to each other. We are at the SMSU summer tent theatre. This is a totally temporary situation that we're looking at. During most of the year, this is a concrete pad. Then, around the middle of May, the tent is erected. As soon as the tent is erected, everything is moved in. Quite literally, everything you see here in the tent is something that is brought in, a temporary arrangement to turn this area into a playing space, a performance space. This space has become a tradition and a favorite with the people in Springfield. The tent seats somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 to 360 people. The stage that I am standing on is basically a platform stage. It has masking pieces on the right and left, which keep the audience from seeing what goes on backstage. This allows the audience to only see what happens on the stage. Additionally, there are wings offstage for the actors to make their entrances and exits. One of the unquestionable reasons why the tent is as well-received and a favorite is because of the intimate situation it offers. The viewpoint you are currently looking at is from the back row of the tent. You are not very far from the performer, creating a wonderful relationship between the performer and the audience. Those who are sitting in the front row are practically on the edge of the stage, creating an even closer connection with the performance.