Theatre of (your)Dreams
Contents
1. During construction it also became the primary reference document for the builder Bovis Lend Lease and Jands as the Theatre Engineering Contractor Recognising that this would be their only opportunity for a very long time to get a new theatre of their own in 2004 MTC appointed a Theatre Development Manager Craig Gamble Diaev leas a a to represent them directly at all points in the consultation planning and construction processes His role was to ensure not only that their brief was adhered to but that all decisions about the construction equipping and operational capabilities of their new theatres took full account of the end user s needs and point of view In February 2009 the fruits of this planning consulting design and construction process opened its doors to the public The main venue the Sumner Theatre is a beautiful 500 560 seat performing space that despite its size feels and sounds surprisingly intimate while the 160 seat Lawler Studio is a very well conceived black box studio space although it s actually deep maroon with adjustable black curtains a lt In place ofta matrix of tens of tnousands of LEDs the w rds were created by drilling yy patterns of noles in sheets of 32mm plywood LESSONS LEARNED The lessons learned from years of working in such less than ideal venues as MTC s former homes at Russell Street St Martins Theatre and the Athenaeum theatre were incorporated into2. approximately 26m wide x 19m deep including 6m rear stage area with a scenery flying height of 20m is as capable a space as anything found anywhere in the world A Stage Technologies Nomad system controls some 64 motorised 500kg fly lines coil spring lighting cable reelers and half a dozen ASM 250kg band hoists for spot lines The Yamaha DM1000 audio console feeding theatre sector s favourite Meyer speakers configured for stage sounds and sound effects will serve as a solid base for whatever productions come along The 4000 channel ETC Eos console will certainly take good care of the 460 IES dimmers driving just under 500 conventional fixtures and 16 moving lights The large number and wide selection of Selecon ETC Martin and Quartzcolour luminaires will never be enough Left Not only was stage terminology and technology initially unfamiliar to the team from project builder Bovis Lend Lease but the concept of the re sizeable proscenium opening that could move in so many directions at once was hard to pick up from the engineering drawings To make the concepts abundantly clear the builders knocked up this down n dirty not even slighty to scale model Right A view from the stage showing what the cardboard model was actually describing 1 The proscenium header 2 The teaser 3 The tormentor with its panels and Juliet balcony for any lighting designer but neither would twice as many Similarly there is
3. the brief to make these venues the best working theatres that could jointly be imagined The loading dock is directly connected to both stage areas and at the same level There is a stage management props kitchen for preparation of stage food There are storage and show maintenance areas for all departments It s possible for performers to get from backstage to auditorium entrances without going out into the street or parading through the foyers There is a goods lift that offers direct access to every level of the stage house from the sub stage to the winch room The stage management prompt corner system can operate from either side of the stage the control room or the production desk position in the house Performance technical staff can get from backstage areas to the control rooms spot positions and other working points without battling foyer crowds or climbing through blacked out roof spaces Through the use of Jands hand winches the house lights can be maintained and re lamped without ladders scaffolds bosun s chairs licensed riggers or trained acrobats There are configurable and extendable work light white and running light blue systems throughout the venues Are you getting the picture As you d expect both venues are well equipped with high quality equipment as befits a flagship theatre company The Sumner s main stage area of ie s a a mai Sumner Theatre as seen from the control room
4. a good stock of stage drapery but every production will still require a skip full of black tatt to finish off the masking This venue is as well equipped as drama gets and then a little bit more but that s not why this is an amazing place for making theatre CURTAINS One of the more unusual features of the Sumner Theatre is the absence of that long standing public health institution the fire curtain Provided as a safety measure to protect the audience to be from the once fairly regular conflagrations that would break out on stage the concept was that this non combustible fire curtain would be lowered in to trap the fire on stage immolating the performers and crew while the gentlefolk in the audience had time to flee from the auditorium To meet their onerous fire ratings most fire curtains are constructed from a framework of steel beams covered with a non combustible material such as metal fibro cement sheeting or even asbestos sheeting Weighing several tonnes and occupying a slot some 150mm 300mm deep in the proscenium arch these fire curtains are required to completely seal the gap between the stage and the auditorium No scenery or props are permitted in the path of the fire curtain and any mechanism to allow for adjustments to the proscenium opening must still maintain the critical fire seal Theatre consultant Dennis Irving sat down with the fire authorities in Melbourne and persuaded them to rethink the problem
5. floor that isn t completely removable is the forestage which consists of three independent lifts powered by Serapid s LinkLift actuators The lifts can be set at substage level to form an orchestra pit at auditorium floor level to extend the seating capacity of the theatre or at stage level to become a forestage As the additional auditorium seating wagons are stored beneath the auditorium in the under stage area the lifts also serve to transport these seat units to their auditorium position FOLLOWSPOT BRIDGE Although only a few of MTC s productions use followspots it was essential for the theatre to have followspot positions that provide both a safe working platform for the operators and a good lighting angle Such a place is the bridge built on the level above the control rooms In keeping with the brief for maximum flexibility in the venue any point on the bridge can be used for followspots special effects equipment television broadcast or closed circuit video cameras projection systems musicians or even as a performer s entrance or balcony Using a system developed by Jands the entire wall between the bridge and the auditorium can be electrically raised or lowered in independent two metre sections to create any arrangement of portals or slots in the rear wall Of course this bridge is supplied with all of the usual electrical audio and data services and is accessible through the mouse hole network and via stairc
6. 2 x pairs flat traveller curtains black wool 10000 h x 9500 w each panel 1 x white filled gauze cyclorama 9500 h x 30000 w 1 x plastic cyclorama 10000 h x 17000 w 2 x sharkstooth gauze black 9500 h x 17000 w 1 x sharkstooth gauze grey 9500 h x 17000 w 1 x smother curtain flat black wool 9500 h x 17000 w 4 x Triple E traveller tracks 18000 in length 3 x cyclorama stretcher frames AUDIO Console Yamaha DM 1000 Speakers 7 x Meyer UPJ 1 speakers Main front of house 9 x Meyer UPM 1P speakers Auditorium surround system Permanently mounted in auditorium walls 6 x Meyer MM 4 speakers Front fill 2 x Meyer M1D Sub Bass speakers 4 x Meyer UPJ 1 speakers Foldback and effects 4 x Meyer UPM 1P speakers Foldback and effects
7. CHD ti DOO O heatre of At last a theatre that s thought of everything Text Andy Ciddor WHEN YOU VE BEEN staging productions for over 50 years you can t help but have a few ideas about how your shows should go together and what facilities can make the shows easier to stage and run Decades ago before they left their erstwhile home in Russell Street for their long sojourn in Melbourne s Arts Centre the production department at the Melbourne Theatre Company MTC began making notes about what their future theatre might be Over the years The Brief as it became known gradually accumulated the company s ideas aspirations and dreams for what would one day become their permanent home theatre Along the way there were at least nine proposals for a new MTC theatre at various times and various locations and although on each occasion the project eventually fell through the experience gained in working on these proposals my was also absorbed into The Brief When in 1999 architects Ashton Raggat McDougall won the competition to design the MTC Melbourne Recital Centre project The Brief was provided as an attachment to their contract and became the de facto user manual for the project It was duly handed on to the project s theatre and acoustic consultants Arup which entrusted it to their theatre consultant the late Denis Irving as the starting point for the theatre s technical specification
8. and putting holes through the floor Production managers and head carpenters on the other hand are always under time and budgetary pressure to have the stage available for fit up and technical rehearsals But making good the floor from a previous production or installing floor traps for the next one requires areas of the stage to be closed off for safety purposes and engages teams of carpenters and mechanists who could otherwise be involved in turning the venue around The solution devised by project manager Craig Gamble for the Sumner Theatre approaches the problem from the opposite direction there is no permanent stage floor In the manner of an IT room the entire stage deck is constructed from easily demountable uniform modules that can be interchanged with pre built replacement units with the necessary traps already in place The make good process simply involves replacing the modified floor module with a standard unit All preparation and construction takes place off site with replacement modules interchanged at the start of the fit up While this may seem relatively simple there were some stringent engineering requirements for ShowTrek during the development of the stage floor system to allow the floor to carry not only the large distributed weights of stage sets but also the substantial point loads of self propelled elevated work platforms like the Sumner s excellent 2 7 tonne Haulotte Star 10 The only section of the stage
9. ase to the control room There is also a series of similarly cabled slots that can be opened as required in the side walls of the auditorium to provide positions for lighting booms loudspeakers alternative followspot positions effects equipment projectors scenery or even performers HOUSE LIGHTING In addition to the conventional Source 4 Pars used for house lighting the architect proposed to have sections of the walls of the auditorium display quotes from famous productions and playwrights While the idea was enthusiastically accepted the proposed display system an array of addressable colour changing LED pixels spread across the upper parts of the auditorium walls was fairly swiftly costed out of existence When MTC were advised that the auditorium wall panelling had to be perforated in order to meet the acoustic requirements of the room they implemented a traditional theatrical solution to create the so called Word Walls In place of a matrix of tens of thousands of LEDs the words were created by drilling patterns of holes in sheets of 32mm plywood i i Toce HLL ZA EZ kikihi i 7 A F A le 7 r D id ry Oe Left One of the vast network of low technology mouse holes that enable safe simple and fire rated connections between every space in the venue The fire rated bean bags in the tube no it s not an old cleaning cloth maintain the fire integrity of the wall Right Dimmer ro
10. of audience safety As the purpose of a fire curtain is to allow the audience to exit safely in the case of a fire Irving proposed that by providing enough clear exit paths from the theatre and using a stage ventilation system that prevents the smoke from a stage fire from entering the auditorium there would be sufficient time for an audience to get safely out of the building without the need for a fire curtain proposal the fire authorities cleared the way for the design of a By accepting Irving s reconfigurable proscenium frame and freed set designers from having to leave a hole in their sets to accommodate the lowering of the fire curtain Thus unlike any other major theatre in the country through some smart design by MTC and clever engineering by primary contractor Jands and Steve Conroy at ShowTrek Productions the Sumner s proscenium opening complete with Juliet balconies is variable in width from 11m to 16m and also variable in height from 0m to 9m while always looking like an architecturally solid wall FLEXIBILITY Because there is no such thing as a standard format for an MTC production the venue has been designed from the outset to allow almost anything to be done almost anywhere While some of the possibilities for production performance and events could be imagined and even catered for directly in the plans it s clearly impossible to build in adequate facilities for the as yet unimagined requirement
11. om Although there are 756 directly connected load circuits and rack space for around 800 dimmers in the IES system a generous 460 channels of dimmer and relay modules are currently installed These plugable modules may be moved between racks to provide control onthe circuits in use for any particular production or exchanged loaned or borrowed with the IES sinewave dimmer modules in the MRC next door Lighting Equipment List Lighting Console ETC Eos 4000 Dimming 756 outlets via ETC IES Matrix dimming system to 460 dimmers 372 x 2 5KVA phase controlled dimmers 36 x 5KVA phase controlled dimmers 42 x 10A non dimmed relays 6 x 20A non dimmed relays Profile Spots 4 x ETC Source 4 5 750W 20 x ETC Source 4 10 750W 60 x ETC Source 4 19 750W 60 x ETC Source 4 26 750W 50 x ETC Source 4 36 750W 20 x ETC Source 4 50 750W 8 x Selecon Pacific Zoom 45 75 1000W 20 x Selecon Pacific Zoom 23 50 1000W 20 x Selecon Pacific Zoom 14 35 1000W Fresnel amp PC Spots 40 x Selecon 250mm lens Fresnel 2000W 30 x Selecon 175mm lens Fresnel 1200W 30 x Selecon Rama 175mm PC spot 1200W 20 x Selecon Acclaim Fresnel 650W Cyclorama 12 x Quartzcolour Iris 4 cyc floods 12 x Quartzcolour 4 compartment ground rows Beamlights 80 x ETC Source 4 Pars each with a full set of lenses and reflectors 750W Moving Head luminaires 8 x ETC Revolution with shutters 750W 8 x Martin TW1 wash 1200W Follo
12. s that will arise during the many decades that the building will be in use As the very model of a modern major production house there are clusters of three phase power technical power outlets data feeds and audio tie lines secreted in every nook and cranny of the building from the roof to the staircase landings and from the workshops to the offices the ceiling voids and probably also in the cleaner s cupboard Any place in the building where it is even remotely possible to want to hang anything from a drape to a Christmas decoration a length of rope or couple of lights to an advertising banner or a circus performer you ll find strengthened and rated rigging attachment points Water drainage and compressed air lines are run to the roof all sides and levels of the stage house everywhere you can imagine backstage and of course the pit and all over the under stage area These are provisions for the unlikely and the unusual but the nevertheless conceivable What happens if you need 200 Amps of 400Hz 110V power in the greenroom or a chilled glycol feed in the control room a satellite antenna feed in the orchestra pit a gas flame in the middle of the auditorium or half a dozen HD television camera feeds from the Lawler Studio to an outside broadcast van in the loading dock How can you achieve these feats without compromising public access paths fire isolation integrity or performing serious building works The ans
13. w Spots 2 x Robert Juliat Super Korrigan HMI 1200W Atmospheric Effects 2 x Look Solutions Unique hazers 2 x Rosco 1700 smoke machines Accessories 8 x Boom bases 6 x Boom trolleys 80 x Boom Arms Lighting Bars 20 x Jands JLX wired lighting bars fed via Conductix Wampfler cable reelers The exterior of the MTC Theatre The distorted forced perspective of the building s outline resolves into a neat set of boxes when viewed from the footpath near the corner of St Kilda Road and Southbank Boulevard outside the National Gallery of Victoria which were then mounted over the required sound deadening voids painted white inside The void space of each wall panel is illuminated by a Space Cannon Athena RGB LED washlight to form a lightbox The overall effect is virtually indistinguishable from the original concept and the colours of the words can be changed with ease The one drawback is that short of replacing the drilled ply sheets it s no longer possible to change the wording TO INFINITY amp BEYOND Unlike its equally impressive next door neighbour the Melbourne Recital Centre see Issue 4 that was built to host new productions with new requirements every few days the MTC theatre building was built to house a specific company producing shows with complex requirements and runs measured in weeks and months rather than days The type of flexibility that has been incorporated into this carefully thought out building leaves MTC
14. wer chosen by MTC was to install a series of resealable mouse holes in every internal wall floor and ceiling in the building enabling any space to be connected to any other space using nothing more sophisticated than a short step ladder In the photo you can see that the mouse holes are constructed from standard plumbing pipes and access covers Fire isolation is maintained through the use of fire rated bean bags packed with fire rated pellets of equivalent value to the wall material Once a cable hose or pipe has been run through a mouse hole the bean bags are re packed into the hole to restore the fire isolation Left The demountable stage system proposed by MTC s Craig Gamble and engineered by Show Trek Each removable deck module sits between two removable multi sectioned joists supported by demountable pillars The concept has been so well received by the industry that Jands and ShowTrek have already installed an identical system at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre Inset How all of the floor elements fit together Right The Serapid Linklift actuators that drive the three forestage lifts STAGE FLOOR The stage floor of a performing venue is always a bitter bone of contention Directors frequently want the ability to structure entrances and exits in the vertical as well as the horizontal plane Stage designers love to explore every skerrick of the stage volume to create the space for the production by using staircases
15. with a clear path forward into the unknowns of future technologies scripts designers and directors Dramatis Personae NAVAN Client Melbourne Theatre Company a department of University of Melbourne Project partners State Gov Victoria Arts Victoria Architect lan McDougall and Peter Bickle of Ashton Raggat McDougall Project Manager Major Projects Victoria Lighting Design public areas John Ford of Electrolight Principal Theatre Consultant Denis Irving of Entertech Theatre amp Acoustic Consultants Arup Theatre Development Manager Craig Gamble Services Consultants Umow Lai Builder Bovis Lend Lease Primary Theatre Engineering Contractor Jands Jands subcontractors Audio Systems Rutledge Engineering Proscenium amp Demountable Floor Systems Construction Show Trek Productions Equipment List NANIN STAGING Flying System Grid weight load limit 30 tonnes Controller Stage Technologies Nomad 54 x 500kg power flying lines Jands SP650 servo hoists at 200mm centres upstage from the setting line 6 x 500kg power flying lines Jands SP650 servo hoists at 300mm centres downstage from the setting line 4 x 500kg power flying lines Jands SP650 servo hoists as panorama bars 2 on each side of stage 6 x 250kg ASM P250 servo high speed band hoists as spot lines Forestage Lift 3 sections on Serapid Linklift actuators Drapes 9 x pairs flat black wool legs 9500 h x 4000 w 7 x borders flat black wool 5000 h x 18000 w
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