On building a theatre / Stage construction and equipment for small theatres, schools and community

by Irving Pichel

The late Wallace Sabine, however, demonstrated that it was possible to predict the acoustic properties of a proposed structure with scientific accuracy, and to forestall defects by structural modification. In The American Architect, Dec. 31, 1913, Professor Sabine described the experiments by which the causes of the acoustic difficulties in the New Theatre (now the Century) in New York were discovered and overcome, and the methods which he employed in helping plan a number of the theatres designed by C. H. Blackhall, perhaps the most experienced theatre architect in the United States. This paper and others by Professor Sabine should be read by any architect who contemplates building an auditorium of any sort. The matter is too vital to be left to a hit-or-miss chance of success.

With an auditorium from every part of which the stage can be seen, from every seat of which all the words of the actors can be heard, there will be little fault to be found. Its comfort, its ventilation, its isolation from street noises, its protection against fire—these are matters which need not be treated here, and which have been written of elsewhere more adequately than I could write of them. As for its decoration, there are no rules to govern that. If the designer has bad taste, there is no help for it, except to avoid him. If he is an artist, let him exercise his art on the interior of the auditorium and forget the sort of thing that has traditionally adorned theatres and wedding cakes.

But, most of all, let him talk with the artist, if there should luckily be one, who is going to work in the particular theatre, and learn from him the sorts of play that are to be done, and the æsthetic of the group that is to present them, if it has one, and so find some clue to the atmosphere the auditorium should evoke. From then on, his task is one of high creation.

CHAPTER II.

THE STAGE PLAN

We are accustomed to regard as the stage of a theatre that part on which the actors appear, immediately behind the footlights, bounded, right and left, by the proscenium arch. As a matter of fact, this is a very small part of the stage. From the construction of many school stages and many of the stages of the little and experimental theatres, I am convinced that this misconception really exists. It is true that many little theatre groups have been obliged to choose between a cramped stage and no stage at all. On the whole, the work they have done, in the light of their limited equipment, is nothing short of amazing.

One well-known little theatre director has declared to me that he values these inadequacies because of the ingenuity required to overcome them. And I imagine that very frequently admiration for this sort of ingenuity passes current for the evaluation on its own merits of work done in these theatres.

No director could be hindered, however, by having excellent facilities at his command. His imagination, instead of visioning means of overcoming too low a roof to his stage or the lack of off-stage space, would be free to interpret the matter of the play itself. It would be a great pity to lose the work of many earnest groups who have been presenting plays in remodelled dwellings, saloons, or stables, with what appear to be hopelessly inadequate stages. But if a building is to be erected for the purpose of housing a theatre, it will mean greater freedom for the artists (in fact or intent) who are to occupy it, if they are given every facility that foresight can provide.

The stage, properly speaking, is about five times as large as the part of it that is visible to the audience when the curtain is raised. The spaces to right and left of the proscenium arch should equal the center space within the proscenium. Then there is the space above the stage, the space under the stage and the space required adjacent to the stage for dressing rooms, shops, etc.

Dimensions for practically all of these spaces can best be derived from the dimensions of the proscenium arch. The width of the opening generally is equal to half the width of the auditorium at its widest part. It may be somewhat less or somewhat greater, but it is well to establish a minimum of twenty-four feet for the width of the opening. Less than this will not give adequate space without serious crowding for the presentation of scenes with more than a very few people.