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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles Is Renovated, Relieving Headache-Inducing Quirks
"Two months ago, Michael Ritchie, who was almost finished shepherding the renovation of the Mark Taper Forum here, woke in the middle of the night in a panic."
I think that this article underscores the importance of flexibility in our field. As with the Taper, there are many, many spaces out there that are either poorly designed, not designed with theatre in mind, or simply outdated for the brand of theatre we do now. A huge asset as a technical director is to be able to overcome these problems with the space and still be able to do amazing things. Yes, it's nice that they fixed the problems, but I think it's a testament to their technical staff's flexibility that they were able to operate under the old conditions for so long.
Having worked for CTG I got to hear about the taper "challenges" all the time. The best was the old wooden treadmill in the deck that constantly got platformed over in someway or another. And the bathroom situation was really that horrible. I got to see thirteen (teen pop musical) there and their was lots of squirming/ fidgeting while waiting in line for the restroom. Granted it's not as bad as some of the littler theaters over in hollywood where you have to cross the street to use the restroom with a restaurant the company has a deal with for restroom usage.
But CTG did do a few really interesting things to make usage of the space work. The shop they used for the tapers scenery has a mock up of the loading doors and path to the stage so they can make sure that the scenery can in fact actually make it in the door on arrival (yes it really was a concern).
2 comments:
I think that this article underscores the importance of flexibility in our field. As with the Taper, there are many, many spaces out there that are either poorly designed, not designed with theatre in mind, or simply outdated for the brand of theatre we do now. A huge asset as a technical director is to be able to overcome these problems with the space and still be able to do amazing things. Yes, it's nice that they fixed the problems, but I think it's a testament to their technical staff's flexibility that they were able to operate under the old conditions for so long.
Having worked for CTG I got to hear about the taper "challenges" all the time. The best was the old wooden treadmill in the deck that constantly got platformed over in someway or another. And the bathroom situation was really that horrible. I got to see thirteen (teen pop musical) there and their was lots of squirming/ fidgeting while waiting in line for the restroom. Granted it's not as bad as some of the littler theaters over in hollywood where you have to cross the street to use the restroom with a restaurant the company has a deal with for restroom usage.
But CTG did do a few really interesting things to make usage of the space work. The shop they used for the tapers scenery has a mock up of the loading doors and path to the stage so they can make sure that the scenery can in fact actually make it in the door on arrival (yes it really was a concern).
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