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Friday, October 04, 2024
Mirvish moved into this former school for rehearsals
www.thestar.com/entertainment: When Mirvish was looking to mount its upcoming production of “The Lion King,” it faced one glaring problem: there was no existing rehearsal space in the city that could accommodate Disney’s behemoth blockbuster.
8 comments:
Carolyn Burback
said...
This article reminded me of when Kamala Harris steam-rolled through Purnell to set up her conference. The alteration of the library and classroom descriptions from the article remind me of how Harris’ team invaded the different theatres and scene shop to make it work for them. However, it seems the school building The Lion King moved into was uninhabited with students so it seems like the crew didn’t disrupt anyone’s educational. I think it is cool when buildings can be repurposed for other uses than what it was originally intended for. Except when the repurposers yeet your prop furniture to the four winds and face a moist dripping vent bank right in front of your scenery which is supporting their equipment they leaned onto it and dented your paint job with. I think the Lion King faced difficult challenges with its extra large puppetry and scope of scenery. I think it must be hard to manage a traveling show that large—but at the same time that show has been around and trying for quite a while so they probably have the system down except in special cases like this.
When reading this article I immediately came to the conclusion that of course a production company would do something like this. The creative use of space and the specific yet deciding factors that made them choose a school to host rehearsals are classic things that can limit and expand the theatrical production process. Then at the very end of the article they mention that they completely redid the air conditioning in the school and had a sprung floor built in the gym to aid in the rehearsal process just to move on from the space after production is finished. The fluidity and lack of stability present in theater causes so much money to be spent on things that cant be used in the future. But I guess that's all just budgeting and deciding whether its worth renting out a more theatrical based space for more money or working with a location that fills your needs but requires extra time to fulfill some easier wants.
This is SO cool to me; what a great use for an otherwise unused space. I love the idea of showing up to rehearsal and also having the props department one “classroom” over, the hair and makeup studio down the hall, everyone and everything under one roof. Especially for a show like The Lion King, this seems great since the departments must work so closely together, especially actors and the props department for the puppets. My experience with rehearsal spaces ranges, but I’ve definitely been in some less than ideal rehearsal space situations and the thought of having a building like a huge school that is just for your production sounds not only convenient but also so fun. There must be so much extra space to take breaks or eat lunch or go elsewhere to run lines or sing outside of the group. I’ve been in situations where we want to break the cast into groups to work various parts of the show or parts of a scene and we may have two or three rooms but there’s always a few people or a group who we wish we had another nearby space for, and I feel like you’d never run into that issue with an entire school to spread out in. The lack of AC does not sound ideal, but big fans were created for a reason.
The resourcefulness of the theatre community is amazing. Using what was available to them and transforming it into a home is honestly symbolic of the community as a whole. If the world doesn’t have a home for us, we will make one ourselves and it will be beautiful. And it does in fact strike me as beautiful that no one felt the need to construct a new facility or completely overhaul the building to make it look more like a traditional rehearsal facility. I'm used to doing theatre and rehearsing in wildly "nontraditional" places and making things work. I think something like this truly shows what is needed to put together something great and to do the work. In this case they simply added what was needed (AC), did what they needed to do, and left the space a little better than they found it. We could all take a lesson from Mirvish’s book.
Joshua Chong's creative solution to Mirvish's rehearsals for the Lion King surprised me. I'm sure that when the production company measured the volume of the Lion King production, they must have assumed that no theater shop could withstand such a long run of consideration. So it might be best to use an existing building to transform it. The idea of sustainability has long been promoted in the theater industry. But with urban planning, with architectural reuse really redefining the concept. This approach shows the unique intersection between the constraints of urban space and the demands of theatrical production. By converting a former school into a rehearsal space, Mirvish not only solved the logistical challenges posed by the scale of production, but also breathed new life into the unused space. The article not only details the practical aspects of such an undertaking, but cleverly points to the wider implications for the city's cultural infrastructure. It's fascinating to see how a production of this scale can adapt to the physical constraints of the city while still aiming to deliver a first-class theatrical experience.
This is a great use for an old school. I think it’s surprising just how applicable a school can be to a theatrical production. Even just comparing Purnell to any high school, besides the purpose-built rooms like the theaters and the scene shop, most rooms that we have here could fit in a school somehow. I can certainly see advantages over a facility that’s spread out between multiple buildings; having everything under one roof must make rehearsals and production easy and efficient. I was surprised at how much they invested into the building – as the article says, a month of prep work and who knows how many dollars – only to plan to leave by November. It really puts into perspective the way these larger productions operate, and what their profit margins and operating costs are like. With all the renovations that Mirvish’s team has done, though, it would be cool to see other shows that come through Toronto using the space again.
I find this to be a fantastic solution to the company’s spacing issue. It's a great use of a massive space and it's quite a resourceful solution, I don’t think most people would think of a school gym as a back up rehearsal space. Even then the more you think about it, it really would be a good place for it. School floors are generally very smooth and very sturdy to be able to withstand constant wear and tear from potentially immature and destructive children. The flooring would be great for moving scenery with how smooth it is, and there wouldn’t be any bumps or crevices that rehearsing actors could trip on while dancing. On top of that the hallways would definitely be large enough for storing props and scenery because they’re designed for large quantities of people to need to get through them in very short periods of time. I hope more large theatre companies consider doing things like this when in need of space, it would most certainly benefit the schools as well to be able to get extra funding from renting out the spaces as well as the theatre companies to have such large spaces to rehearse.
8 comments:
This article reminded me of when Kamala Harris steam-rolled through Purnell to set up her conference. The alteration of the library and classroom descriptions from the article remind me of how Harris’ team invaded the different theatres and scene shop to make it work for them. However, it seems the school building The Lion King moved into was uninhabited with students so it seems like the crew didn’t disrupt anyone’s educational. I think it is cool when buildings can be repurposed for other uses than what it was originally intended for. Except when the repurposers yeet your prop furniture to the four winds and face a moist dripping vent bank right in front of your scenery which is supporting their equipment they leaned onto it and dented your paint job with. I think the Lion King faced difficult challenges with its extra large puppetry and scope of scenery. I think it must be hard to manage a traveling show that large—but at the same time that show has been around and trying for quite a while so they probably have the system down except in special cases like this.
When reading this article I immediately came to the conclusion that of course a production company would do something like this. The creative use of space and the specific yet deciding factors that made them choose a school to host rehearsals are classic things that can limit and expand the theatrical production process. Then at the very end of the article they mention that they completely redid the air conditioning in the school and had a sprung floor built in the gym to aid in the rehearsal process just to move on from the space after production is finished. The fluidity and lack of stability present in theater causes so much money to be spent on things that cant be used in the future. But I guess that's all just budgeting and deciding whether its worth renting out a more theatrical based space for more money or working with a location that fills your needs but requires extra time to fulfill some easier wants.
This is SO cool to me; what a great use for an otherwise unused space. I love the idea of showing up to rehearsal and also having the props department one “classroom” over, the hair and makeup studio down the hall, everyone and everything under one roof. Especially for a show like The Lion King, this seems great since the departments must work so closely together, especially actors and the props department for the puppets. My experience with rehearsal spaces ranges, but I’ve definitely been in some less than ideal rehearsal space situations and the thought of having a building like a huge school that is just for your production sounds not only convenient but also so fun. There must be so much extra space to take breaks or eat lunch or go elsewhere to run lines or sing outside of the group. I’ve been in situations where we want to break the cast into groups to work various parts of the show or parts of a scene and we may have two or three rooms but there’s always a few people or a group who we wish we had another nearby space for, and I feel like you’d never run into that issue with an entire school to spread out in. The lack of AC does not sound ideal, but big fans were created for a reason.
The resourcefulness of the theatre community is amazing. Using what was available to them and transforming it into a home is honestly symbolic of the community as a whole. If the world doesn’t have a home for us, we will make one ourselves and it will be beautiful. And it does in fact strike me as beautiful that no one felt the need to construct a new facility or completely overhaul the building to make it look more like a traditional rehearsal facility. I'm used to doing theatre and rehearsing in wildly "nontraditional" places and making things work. I think something like this truly shows what is needed to put together something great and to do the work. In this case they simply added what was needed (AC), did what they needed to do, and left the space a little better than they found it. We could all take a lesson from Mirvish’s book.
Joshua Chong's creative solution to Mirvish's rehearsals for the Lion King surprised me. I'm sure that when the production company measured the volume of the Lion King production, they must have assumed that no theater shop could withstand such a long run of consideration. So it might be best to use an existing building to transform it. The idea of sustainability has long been promoted in the theater industry. But with urban planning, with architectural reuse really redefining the concept. This approach shows the unique intersection between the constraints of urban space and the demands of theatrical production. By converting a former school into a rehearsal space, Mirvish not only solved the logistical challenges posed by the scale of production, but also breathed new life into the unused space. The article not only details the practical aspects of such an undertaking, but cleverly points to the wider implications for the city's cultural infrastructure. It's fascinating to see how a production of this scale can adapt to the physical constraints of the city while still aiming to deliver a first-class theatrical experience.
This is a great use for an old school. I think it’s surprising just how applicable a school can be to a theatrical production. Even just comparing Purnell to any high school, besides the purpose-built rooms like the theaters and the scene shop, most rooms that we have here could fit in a school somehow. I can certainly see advantages over a facility that’s spread out between multiple buildings; having everything under one roof must make rehearsals and production easy and efficient. I was surprised at how much they invested into the building – as the article says, a month of prep work and who knows how many dollars – only to plan to leave by November. It really puts into perspective the way these larger productions operate, and what their profit margins and operating costs are like. With all the renovations that Mirvish’s team has done, though, it would be cool to see other shows that come through Toronto using the space again.
I find this to be a fantastic solution to the company’s spacing issue. It's a great use of a massive space and it's quite a resourceful solution, I don’t think most people would think of a school gym as a back up rehearsal space. Even then the more you think about it, it really would be a good place for it. School floors are generally very smooth and very sturdy to be able to withstand constant wear and tear from potentially immature and destructive children. The flooring would be great for moving scenery with how smooth it is, and there wouldn’t be any bumps or crevices that rehearsing actors could trip on while dancing. On top of that the hallways would definitely be large enough for storing props and scenery because they’re designed for large quantities of people to need to get through them in very short periods of time. I hope more large theatre companies consider doing things like this when in need of space, it would most certainly benefit the schools as well to be able to get extra funding from renting out the spaces as well as the theatre companies to have such large spaces to rehearse.
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