The Kogod Cradle Mead Center for American Theater Arena Stage, Washington DC

Transcription

1 The Kogod Cradle Mead Center for American Theater Arena Stage, Washington DC FDA Fisher Dachs Associates Theatre Planning and Design photo compliments of TALASKE sound thinking

2 A real rejuvenation requires an enormous act of will, a leap of faith, and some serious alchemy. 2

3 Like so many of us, when a landmark reaches its 40th birthday it becomes painfully clear that there are some things that don t work quite as well as they used to. Cosmetics might hide this for a while, but they don t fix the real problems. A real rejuvenation requires an enormous act of will, a leap of faith, and some serious alchemy. For the Arena Stage in Washington DC, all three came together to produce the Mead Center for American Theater. Arena Stage is one of America s earliest and most renowned theater companies, a pioneer in the Regional Theater movement. Founded in 1950, its home since 1961 has been the Fichandler Theater by architect Harry Weese, an iconic theater-inthe-round originally seating 800. For its first several decades it was home to a resident acting company, and it was the first regional theater to transfer a production to Broadway The Great White Hope, starring James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander. The company quickly outgrew the original building and added more support space and a second theater in 1971, the Kreeger, a 500-seat proscenium theater with deep curving apron. 3 Mead Center for American Theater The Cradle

4 By 1996, when FDA first came on-board, Arena knew that its facility was aging and in need of refurbishment and updating but more than that, the building itself was making it difficult for the company to expand its artistic mission, improve the patron experience, and deepen the company s engagement with the community. We looked at a number of options with them, even including the possibility of relocating to a new building in a more central downtown location. By 1998 Molly Smith had arrived as Artistic Director, and the Board had made a commitment to stay and renovate their building in South-West DC. It retained Vancouver-based architect Bing Thom, and we set about planning the expansion and renovation. In the end, the entire building was demolished except for the two performance spaces themselves, and all the public areas, offices, dressing rooms, production spaces, and some parking spaces are completely new. 4

5 As you can see, architect Bing Thom has taken a pheasant under-glass-approach, and simply built a huge new roof over the old theaters and the new spaces. The roof provides a much-needed acoustical barrier to keep traffic noise (and lowflying Presidential helicopters) out of the Fichandler Theater, whose 1961 roof structure couldn t bear the weight of additional isolation material. The elliptical Cradle nestles in between the Fich and the Kreeger, with lobby spaces flowing between. New dressing rooms, offices, shop and rehearsal spaces complete the structure. 5 Mead Center for American Theater The Cradle

6 A Third Theatre One of the key aspirations was to add a third theater to the complex. The new theater would be small, 200 to 250 seats, and was intended to accommodate new work and plays in development. Arena had been using a kind of basement space for this purpose for many years, but it wasn t originally designed as a theater, and it didn t function very well. In our discussions with Molly, a clear picture emerged. The new theater needed to be: A place in which to nurture new works, A safe place where writers and actors could take risks, An informal place, less polished and more edgy than the other Arena theaters, A place in which you could sense the creative process at work, A theater that could accommodate full productions, But that could also stand on its own without scenery, To accomplish this it might also have some degree of flexibility. The ability of the new theater to accomplish all of this would depend on two things; our approach to flexibility, and the getting character of the enclosure just right. FDA prepared a variety of materials for Molly and the team to discuss. 6

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8 Character We also started to talk about character. We showed Molly and the group images of a wide range of theaters including typical Black Boxes, unique places like the Bouffes du Nord and BAM Harvey Theater (both created for Peter Brook s productions) and several found spaces that had been adapted for performance. Out of these discussions a point of view emerged that would guide the development of the Cradle; that some of the most compelling spaces for performance weren t neutral spaces at all, in fact they were powerful places, silent containers whose unique history, proportions, or materiality evoked an immediate emotional response from the audience that gave performances a heightened context. Whatever else the theater would be, it was important that it also have this capacity to inspire thought and emotion in artists and audiences. Bouffes du Nord 8

9 Powerful places that evoke an immediate emotional response... Almeida Theatre Swan Theatre 9 BAM Harvey Theatre Tramway Theatre Mead Center for American Theater The Cradle

10 Geometry We also talked a lot about geometry. Rectangular schemes seemed too regimented for what Molly was going for; she was drawn to curves and their suggestion of embrace and community. Molly kept talking about the theater as a place to give birth to new work and to nurture it. She said that the space would be a sort of cradle for new plays, and that name stuck. Bing suggested we look at some rounded geometries and FDA modeled some options to look at. I started to sketch hands cradling something and developed a curving geometry around that idea. These sketches led me to drawings of ovals, and eventually Bing picked it up and started making spirals. 10

11 A place to give birth to new work, and to nurture it. 11 Mead Center for American Theater The Cradle

12 Modular Theatre Flexibility We also explored the question of flexibility. Flexibility sounded desirable, but how wide a range would be needed? A simple frontal arrangement seemed necessary, since it was the one form the company didn t really have already. Did the space need to become an arena, a thrust? We made lots of drawings and looked at a variety of strategies. There are always trade-offs to be made in designing any reconfigurable space; the right balance has to be struck between flexibility, time and labor, and initial capital cost. Systems using sophisticated technology, like the Modular Theater at CalArts, provide a lot of flexibility and can be reconfigured pretty quickly without much labor, but require a higher initial investment. Hand-built systems, like standard platforms and legs, have a small initial cost, but burden a company with slow, labor-intensive turnarounds. It was important that whatever we did would facilitate, not hinder the company s work; too many flexible spaces are left in one configuration for years at a time because the effort required is too great to change them. 12

13 Did the space really need to become an arena, a thrust? 13 Mead Center for American Theater The Cradle

14 The decision was to limit the flexibility of the room to a couple of arrangements; a frontal configuration, and a sort of thrust arrangement. By moving just two seating wagons we could make the alteration in a short time, with a modest investment in technology. 14

15 1 2 Legend lighting catwalks 2 wall elements 3 fixed audience seating 4 movable seating wagons 5 seating lift 6 trapped area Mead Center for American Theater The Cradle

16 Materials & Acoustics Molly liked the direction it was heading. The curving gesture seemed right, and we started to think about materials. I had an idea that we could use the rubble from the parts of the original building we were demolishing and use it to make a very textural wall, almost like stone. Our acoustician, Rick Talaske, started feeling queasy. He pointed out that curved surfaces acted as big lenses, focusing sound in specific places rather than spreading it around and that this would lead to major audibility problems for speech. None of us wanted to believe him, because we were too in love with the form, and we asked him to prove it. 16

17 Now we really had to solve the problem. In Bing s parking lot, his staff built a huge wall, using the shallowest curve that we had been drawing in the theater. A speaker was rigged up, and all of us started pacing back and forth in front of the wall, convinced that we wouldn t be able to hear what Rick was so worried about. We must have looked ridiculous. We all walked back and forth quietly, and then grudgingly looked at each other and agreed we could hear the focusing effect; some places were too loud, and others too soft. There was a surprising variation. Now we really had to solve the problem. 17 Mead Center for American Theater The Cradle

18 We pressed Rick for ways we could mitigate the problem without changing the form. Although we pushed him way outside of his comfort zone, his office came up with a strategy that we ultimately adopted - make the curved walls as acoustically transparent as possible, and put the real reflecting surfaces outside these walls. But nobody wanted a theater made out of speaker grill cloth, so what to do? Bing made some beautiful images of cylindrical elements, like tree trunks enclosing the space, which could be concrete or wood. Everyone was drawn to the idea of wood. Wood is durable, and old wood that s been heavily used is often more beautiful because of the patina of time it acquires. I was concerned that the tall verticals might seem to dwarf the actors, and Bing started to look at horizontal textures, which started to look good to all of us except Rick. Rick was still concerned that even horizontal boards with gaps between them would still focus too much sound. 18

19 Mockups For the next several months Bing s office built one mockup after the other, and Rick s office did measurements and calculations. When slotting each board didn t work, we started to look at making the boards wiggle in and out in an irregular pattern to diffuse the sound, like so much linguini. Bing s office, always game, built a device to steam lumber for bending, and set about building more mockups, which led to the ultimate design. We struggled to avoid a pattern that looked repetitive, we tried many board sizes to get the scale just right, and there were long debates and lots of mock-ups to finalize the color. 19 Mead Center for American Theater The Cradle

20 In the end I think we achieved what we set out to. The Cradle, like any studio theater, is well furnished to support a full production with complete scenery and lighting. But its also a space that has a character of its own, alive and fertile for the imagination where so many other spaces are sterile and enervating. Its richly textured curving walls are well scaled to the human form and face, and ambiguous enough to suggest a variety of ideas emotional associations that can be played with or against, but they re also dark enough to retreat into the background. Its form, like its name, is evocative galaxy, cave, arena, womb. Joshua Dachs Fisher Dachs Associates Theatre Planning and Design New York

21 The Kogod Cradle Mead Center for American Theater, Arena Stage th Street SW Washington, DC owner architect theatre planning & design acoustical consulting Arena Stage Bing Thom Architects Fisher Dachs Associates Talaske sound thinking Fisher Dachs Associates is one of the world s leading theatre planning and design consultants. Our mission is to help our clients plan and design successful projects in accordance with real programmatic and budgetary goals. We collaborate actively with artistic and managing directors, leaders of cultural organizations, building owners and architects so that the rooms we jointly create are intimate, dynamic, and technically superb spaces for audiences and performers alike. We approach our projects with one goal: to design a successful room from the inside out. We pride ourselves helping to create memorable experiences for patrons from the time they enter the space to the time they exit at the end of the show. We also work hard to make theatres function equally well for the artists who work in the space, the technical staff who keep it running smoothly, and the management team that has to operate it as a successful business venture Mead Center for American Theater The Cradle

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