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

by Irving Pichel

The general plan of the best modern American theatres is rectangular with the side walls converging toward the stage, beginning at a point about two-thirds of the way from the back. The seats are in concentric rows following a curve drawn from a center approximately at the middle of the back wall of the stage. The back wall of the auditorium follows the curve of the seats. The Little Theatre in New York is built on this plan. Where balconies are included, they have only a slight curve, approximately the same as that of the orchestra seats.

Figure 4—Plan of the theatre at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh. The sight-lines from the sides of the auditorium are badly distorted, evidently to preserve the novel architectural effect of an elliptical room. By drawing lines from the outmost seats in the first five rows, it can be seen that spectators there will be shut off from any view of more than half the stage space. The one outstanding feature here is the large amount of space given to scenery storage-room and green-room.

It is a common fault of school auditoriums that the seating is extended to the right and the left of the stage, so that a considerable number of seats are valueless for seeing. They preserve, also, for no known reason, other than that it has been the theatre practice, the apron, projecting far beyond the line of the proscenium arch.

A second requirement for assuring direct sight lines from every seat to the stage is an inclined floor. In many cases, this appears an insuperable difficulty. Auditoriums which must be used as gymnasiums or dance halls require level floors. Often, then, the stage is elevated at a greater height from the floor than usual, in the belief that this device will overcome the lack of an inclined floor. On the contrary, it merely makes the spectator tilt his head at an uncomfortable angle, makes the players appear preternaturally tall, and, as they move toward the back of the stage, conceals the lower part of their bodies. The best height for a stage, whether with inclined or flat auditorium, is three feet, nine inches.

A number of means may be used to provide an inclined floor when performances are to be given in a hall which must be used for many purposes. In Copley Hall, Boston, movable risers were installed, each row of seats being lifted about six inches above the row in front. This scheme has the advantage of being the least costly at the beginning, but this consideration is outweighed by a host of disadvantages. The trestles and platforms occupy a large storage space when not in use, they are not a hundred percent safe, and they emit a squeak with every footstep. Moreover, they increase, to some degree, the fire hazard.

Far more ingenious and needing no storage space is the device employed by Laurence Ewald in building the Little Theatre of the Artists’ Guild, St. Louis. The theatre occupies a wing of the building used ordinarily as an art gallery, and has a level floor. When performances are to be given, the theatre seats are bolted to the floor, and the back half of the floor, which is built in one piece, hinged at the middle of the auditorium, is lifted at the rear by a four-ton hydraulic jack until a pitch of about one inch per foot is obtained.

Mr. Ewald has provided me with the following account of the construction of the floor:

“The movable part of the floor consists of a floor-bearing structure of steel which extends from a hinge half-way between the back of the house and the stage, and parallel with the front of the stage, to the back of the house.

“This structure is made up of four I-beams at right angles to the front of the stage, and another I-beam attached to them at right angles at the back end of the house. In the cellar, immediately beneath this cross beam, is placed an ordinary four-ton hydraulic jack, which, when operated, revolves the back floor structure on the hinges at the middle of the house. When the floor has been raised thirty inches, four legs suspended from the four I-beams drop of their own weight into position and support the load, and the jack is removed.”