Live Design Online: The 1,600-seat Steinmetz Hall in Orlando is a multiform theatre that easily transforms from a ballet/opera house to a concert hall with 360-degree seating. Michael Nishball, principal equipment designer at Theatre Projects explains the complex cassette structure that is "part architecture, part technology, all flexibility," and is the key to the transformability of this state-of-the-art theatre.
2 comments:
This is a really cool design. I remember my father telling me about one of my more distant uncles and how he designed theaters for the best possible sound quality and reverberation. The first musical my father ever saw growing up on a farm in Oklahoma was a production of Jesus Christ Superstar! In a theater that was designed a lot like this one pictured here. It was in the round and needed little to no vocal or instrumental support from the sound design there as it was crafted specifically for the sound above any other possible aspect for the theater. I think it would certainly be an experience of a lifetime to design in that theater. Sound design would be an absolute revelation but it would certainly be interesting to see what can be done with lighting, scenic, and costumes as well to match the resonance of the sound.
This is really interesting. I had never heard the term “cassette” used in reference to a stage before. I can’t imagine how much money it must have cost to build this. The article was good but quite honestly it didn’t do all that good of a job explaining how the theater works. The way the theater turns into a proscenium style venue makes sense, the arch flys in from above. But, how the side towers work is never really explained. They show them as being stored in the center of the theater but that makes no sense for when in production, unless they were trying to show they could split the stage in two, which I don’t think they were. The idea for the concert venue also makes sense but I would imagine you would want different aesthetics, and it would be difficult to change out seating in that situation.
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