klcjournal.com: As the Wichita Symphony Orchestra rehearsed “Rhapsody in Red, White, and Blue” last month, some musicians on stage were wearing coats and gloves. Because doors elsewhere in Century II had been opened for an RV show, the building’s heating system couldn’t keep up. Had the temperature in the Concert Hall gone much lower, rehearsal would have had to be called off.
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I spent last summer working at Music Theatre Wichita, and will be doing so again this summer. As such, I am very familiar with Century II and its different spaces and limitations. One neat fact about Century II that the article does not mention is that it was built to double as a nuclear bomb shelter during the Cold War. During my time at Century II, the concert hall was rarely used, and I never saw it fully set up for any events. Music Theatre Wichita mostly used it as a storage space four our set pieces while loading in to the proscenium stage. I do remember the concert hall stage however, and this article does not do justice to how little backstage space there is on that stage. Truly there would be just enough room to walk behind any masking. The proscenium stage has a similar problem, but one that affected the scenic team much more than you might guess. The scene shop is in the basement of Century II, while the paint shop is on the ground floor, directly next to the stage. This means that all of our set pieces have to go to the paint shop through the stage, oftentimes while there is a large set either loading or loaded in. While Century II is a fun space to work in, it definitely has its challenges.
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