On the slope nearest the building are semi-circular rows of concrete seats accommodating about fifteen hundred people. A brook spanned by two arched bridges separates the audience from the stage. Back of the turf stage is a graveled stage slightly raised and reached by two flights of steps. The pergola and trees make a beautiful background. The house in the rear is a part of the plant and is used for dressing and make-up.
The Beechwood Theatre within the school has a proscenium opening of twenty-seven feet and a stage depth, back to the plaster horizon, of the same dimensions. There are two complete sets of drapery, one of coarse écru linen and one of blue velvet; there is also a stock drawing-room set of thirty pieces. Back of the stage are ten dressing-rooms. The lighting arrangements are extraordinarily complete: the theatre has a standard electrical equipment of footlights and borders and a switchboard of the best type to which has recently been added the latest lighting devices, consisting of an X-ray border, the end section of which is on a separate dimmer, a thousand-watt centre floodlight, six five-hundred watt-spotlights, each on separate dimmers, in the false proscenium or tormentor,[22] and a line of one-thousand-watt floodlights for lighting the plaster sky. All of this recently added equipment is controlled from a separate portable switchboard.
Though this plant was built primarily for the school, it is used also by the Beechwood Players, a Little Theatre organization, and by other community clubs which comprise an orchestra, a chorus, a group interested in the fine arts, and a poetry circle. Mr. Vanderlip looks forward to the development of a school of the arts of the theatre from the nucleus of the Beechwood community clubs. With this idea in mind he has just built a workshop for the Beechwood Players in a separate building. It contains power woodworking machines, and rooms for painting scenery and for the costume department, the latter containing power sewing machines.
There is no doubt but that these two schools have unique facilities for developing an interest in the acted drama. But artistic results have often been secured in the school theatre with equipment falling far short of the ideal standards achieved at Montclair and at Scarborough. Other less fortunate schools are, moreover, at no particular disadvantage when it comes to the class-room study of the drama for which this book is primarily planned, this work being the first step in the direction of a more intelligent attitude toward modern plays and modern theatres. A class-room reading of modern plays without any accessories, as Shakespeare is often read from the seats and the aisles, is one of the most practical methods of speech and voice improvement. Louis Calvert, the eminent actor, speaking of this kind of training says: "After all it is one of the simplest things in the world to learn to speak correctly, to take thought and begin and end each word properly.... A little attention to one's everyday conversation will often work wonders. If one schools himself for a while to speak a little more slowly, and to give each syllable its due, it is surprising how naturally and rapidly his speech will clarify. If we take care of the consonants, the vowels will take care of themselves."
Ravine where the Garden Theatre was built.
The Garden Theatre.