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Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Protecting theatres for everyone Sponsors Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 02 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres Contents Mhora Samuel Director, The Theatres Trust................ David Benedict Conference 09 Chair........................... Introduction.......................................................................... Transformation.................................................................... Consultation........................................................................ Conference Address......................................................... Hosting.................................................................................. Influencing............................................................................ Audience Design Principles........................................... Attenders.............................................................................. Conference Chairs David Benedict Andrew Dickson Bonnie Greer John E McGrath Artistic Director, National Theatre Wales Contributors Rt Hon Barbara Follett MP Minister for Culture, Creative Industries & Tourism Vikki Heywood Executive Director, Royal Shakespeare Company Tom Piper Associate Designer, Royal Shakespeare Company Dominic Fraser Production Manager, The Old Vic Chris Honer Artistic Director, Manchester Library Theatre Company Emma Rice Artistic Director, Kneehigh Theatre Christina Seilern Principal, Studio Seilern Architects LLP Ruth Eastwood Chief Executive, Leicester Theatre Trust Selene Burn Community Engagement Officer, Birmingham Repertory Theatre Steve Ball Associate Director, Birmingham Repertory Theatre Matt Little Co-Director, Real Ideas Organisation CIC Keith Williams Director, Keith Williams Architects Rob Dickins CBE Chairman, The Theatres Trust Adam Kenwright Managing Director, aka Morag Myerscough Director, Studio Myerscough Leonie Wallace Head of Visitor Services, Wales Millennium Centre John Botteley Theatre Director, Grand Opera House, Belfast Nicky & Lee Caulfield Save Waltham Forest Theatre Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 04 05 06 07 09 11 12 14 17 19 Colin Blumenau Artistic Director, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Jenny Sealey MBE Artistic Director/CEO, Graeae Theatre Steve Tompkins Director, Haworth Tompkins Conference 09 Reporter Jonathan Meth Executive Director, Theatre Is… Conference 09 Photographer Edward Webb Conference 09 Production Manager Petrus Bertschinger Conference 09 Development Consultant Caz Williamson Theatres Trust Conference 09 Staff Mhora Samuel Director Suzanne McDougall Assistant to the Director Kate Carmichael Resources Officer Damian Le Sueur Website & Design Creative Fran Birch Records Officer Paul Connolly Administrator Mark Price Architecture and Planning Adviser Rose Freeman Planning Assistant 03 Mhora Samuel Director, The Theatres Trust Theatres attract audiences by providing live theatre and entertainment experiences that appeal and stir the emotions. As a consequence theatres become part of individual and collective memories and shape individuals’ lives, long after the experience of a particular show or performer is over. Theatres are places where we live those experiences and where we recall those special memories; triggered by passing the outside of a building, remembering what it was like to sit in a particular seat, or the emotions shared with the people we were with, the actors on stage, and the theatre staff who looked after us. We discovered at this year’s conference that it’s this social capital that ensures theatres punch above their weight in the influence they have on our lives. We looked at the responsibility theatre designers have for delivering this social capital and ensuring access through enabling respect. And we discovered how the ongoing process of theatre design and the facilities offered by a theatre are integral to audience loyalty and development. Throughout the day contributors and attenders eloquently talked of the importance of engaging with 04 and listening to audiences. My thanks go to the many contributors and sponsors, the Unicorn, conference staff, and volunteers who helped make the conference happen. We also returned to the ways in which we engage with audiences, pull them into the process of improving the theatres experience, and the importance of ongoing conversations to inform and manage expectations, and having those conversations with young people. So, for Conference 2010, Designing School Theatres, we want to take this design conversation into the area of education. It will take place slightly earlier in the year on the 26 April 2010 in Leeds, and look at the design of theatres co-located or within schools, colleges and higher education institutions; the challenges of designing theatres that feel and work like theatres whilst also serving a range of educational, learning and community needs; their relationship to other theatres in their cities and towns; and the role they play in shaping the next generation of theatre activists, artists and audiences. Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 David Benedict Conference 09 Chair It’s good to talk… I opened the Trust’s Conference 09 by saying that the day was about sharing information and inspiring each other, and reminding us all of two quotes. From Richard Eyre: ‘Theatre is an art form which can never dissolve the scale of the human figure, the sound of the human voice, and our desire to tell each other stories’. And from playwright Bryony Lavery: ‘Theatre is about everybody breathing the same air, so they have the same experience, at the same time. A play is called a play because it’s a divine game between you and the audience, played out with actors’. Those quotes emphasise the same thing: whether it’s an intimate drama in a black box studio, or the grand passions of opera on a vast lyric stage, theatre is about human interaction. Building a theatre is, at root, about creating a space where narratives are shared. Throughout the day, we kept returning to the role of the audience and the inescapable fact that with regard to the design and build of a theatre, the audience cannot simply be an add-on. They are not simply spectators. Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Theatre is a two-way communication and this must be the guiding design principle. The creation of the most fully energised spaces and buildings can only be achieved via a truly collaborative process between the architect, the artist and the audience. We had more than our share of inspiring moments, from Nicky and Lee Caulfield’s passion for saving their theatre in Waltham Forest, to Ruth Eastwood’s true commitment to her audiences at the Curve, to Vikki Heywood’s vision for the RSC to perform in a theatre that physically reaches out into its audience. What became strikingly clear was that theatre design needs to be more sensitive to audiences’ expectations. Factoring in enough time to build upon a properly developed understanding of the subtle relationship between a theatre’s purpose and its audiences is crucial. We can – and must – be better at engaging with and listening to audiences. That dialogue is a defining element of the story and an abiding influence on good design. 05 Introduction Theatre makers, architects, designers, chief executives, impresarios, industry specialists and young activists came together at The Unicorn Theatre in London in June 2009 to explore different approaches to theatre architecture and design, and how these approaches affect and involve audiences. The day was shaped around four conversations: transformation, consultation, hosting and influencing, punctuated at the mid point by our conference address from Barbara Follett. This doesn’t mean that we are all now specialists, rather that architects, theatre makers and audiences come together to negotiate the space. The building process becomes a conversation. A conversation which continues and evolves long after the building is (re)opened. That young people are crucial to this process permeated the day, from the live passionate conviction of Waltham Forest’s Lee and Nicky Caulfield to the articulate two young consultants, Cleo Olukane and Charlie Taylor from the Unicorn on film. This report offers selected highlights from the impressive array of speakers and the lively engagement arising from their high quality and diverse presentations. It concludes with a number of audience design principles drawn from the day. The Conference acknowledged that the process of commissioning and procuring buildings is something which can all too easily derail this conversation. But can we take the opportunity to go beyond the minimum? So when everyone wants to go the toilet at the same time, in the West End 68% of them women, they can. When hosting a group of disabled people, who have varying individual needs, but might also want to experience theatres as a group, they can. Let’s move the horizon beyond basic level compliance. Through successive generations coming anew to buildings, audiences shape the history of theatres. The recent shift in the perception of the place of audiences within the design process is akin to the shift online from a www 1.0 world to a 2.0 one: specialists provide content and gatekeepers control, shifts to the experience being co-created. It’s well worth our collective investment. As Theatres Trust Chair Rob Dickins said, “We must make the experience better, but let’s not think that that’s going to make or break it. Because we have the one experience that people cannot get. They can download computer games, they can download almost anything - except live music and live theatre”. We were guided effortlessly through the day by Conference chair David Benedict, who was ably supported by session chairs Andrew Dickson, Bonnie Greer and John E. McGrath. 06 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 David Benedict asked five leading theatre practitioners to consider how auditoria designs affect audiences and audience development Chair, David Benedict Vikki Heywood Executive Director, Royal Shakespeare Company Tom Piper Associate Designer, Royal Shakespeare Company Dominic Fraser Production Manager, The Old Vic Chris Honer Artistic Director, Manchester Library Theatre Company Emma Rice Artistic Director, Kneehigh Theatre Transformation Intimacy Vikki Heywood talked about the proportions of intimacy in relation to the RSC’s Courtyard and new Royal Shakespeare Theatre space: the RSC had quantified 1,050 seats as its limit. She spoke of ”a democratic theatre” and then contrasted “an endlessly flexible space” with a “thrust design for audiences and actors to share the same space”, and set one of the central questions for the day: does real engagement with audience come through a flexible, mutable space which might also be neutral – or from a signature design which will need to stand the renegotiation of several different generations of audience? “Good seats are not always where the audience expects”, Heywood reminded us - which foreshadowed Emma Rice’s subsequent assertion that “people will tell you what they think they want, which is not necessarily what they actually want…” Tom Piper gave us a more visual index of intimacy by contrasting photographs taken of the relative sizes of the RST stage space to that of the audience space: from 15% in the old theatre to 45% in the new. Attachment to the design, the building or the idea of the building? Testing emerged as another important recurrent theme for the day. Piper cited Charcoalblue and their virtual modelling tools for such facets as the sightlines of individual seats. “The Swan Theatre has a huge personality. But when we looked at our audience surveys it actually came out quite badly on things like sightlines and seat comfort, yet somehow it is the theatre that people love the most… And so I think one of the things that we’ve learnt from the theatre architecture of the 50s and 60s is that actually comfort, good sightlines and all of those things, aren’t necessarily what make great theatre spaces…. I think more and more people are engaging with buildings with personality.” Tom Piper Dominic Fraser gave us a very detailed account of the transformation of the Old Vic in just three weeks in August/ September 2008 for their ‘In The Round ‘Project: taking out the circle and stalls boxes, resulting in the upper circle being much less distant, the slip seats having better sightlines and the stalls opened up. The three minute time lapse film demonstrated the invention and scale of the transformation into the CQS space. Fraser also explained that some things did not emerge until the public arrived: the accessibility of the seating in relation to the ages of the audience and the need for acoustic enhancement. The need for real people in the mix was unequivocal. Chris Honer has been on a 10 year journey – and still has a way to go. The Library Theatre in Manchester is part of the local authority: it has no Trust, no board and Chris reports directly to the Assistant Chief Executive of Manchester City Council. Despite all the limitations of space, facilities and public access, Honer feels its saving grace is that The Library is a great place to watch a play. Over the last decade successive consultants have been brought in to consult and make recommendations, often as part of a wider programme of changes to the Library itself. Honer realised that they needed a group of a dozen or so people to both act as advocates for the theatre and also to give feedback. This then developed into a consultation body to engage with audiences, artists, community and education practitioners. Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 07 Work is formed by where it sits In 1980 Kneehigh inherited the Cornish audience legacy of Footsbarn as the latter left for France. Back then there were no theatres in Cornwall, so performances happened wherever. When Emma Rice arrived in 1992 she found “a barn, a beach and a group of weather-beaten, mad, sexy people”. The barn is a creative space in which the company cooks, chops wood, plays instruments, eats, drinks and parties, as well as making theatre. There is no mobile phone coverage. Work is formed by where it sits; it is visual as there is so little control over the acoustics. In Restornwall Castle, the audience sat on hay bails. Brief Encounter took Kneehigh principles into the West End: exciting, unexpected, welcoming – in this case the temporary communion, in the old Carlton Cinema – of eating popcorn, snogging and the magic of that particular barn… “We’re going to build it individually for each show, and let the work lead and let the story lead, because really that’s the way sometimes a show wants to be, in the round… you can feel the mechanics of the theatre happening around you.” Just do it? Benedict asked at what point in the process the audience is involved. Heywood was very clear, once the team had decided on the thrust stage, the audience was then consulted. The Old Vic, under the time pressures of a three week turnaround and as a temporary experiment, didn’t engage with audiences until the first performance. The Library Theatre framed its consultation in terms of “we’d like to do this because…what do you think?” Honer was surprised by the vehemence of the reaction to proposed changes from older audience members. From the floor Sandy Wright, the architect of the new Hull Truck Theatre turned this into a strength as they “looked at other places, learnt what worked, and ended up using the old theatre template, capitalising on what their audiences liked”. Mark Foley raised the question of the aesthetics underpinning Black Box theatre design – and their impact on audiences. Jason Barnes made a plea for colour and texture: changing the “temperature” of a building, letting the story lead and gave us Breughel to populate our thinking and our modelling with real people. Emma Rice 08 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Andrew Dickson invited panellists to look at why we should engage audiences in theatres design and how best to go about it Chair, Andrew Dickson Christina Seilern Principal, Studio Seilern Architects LLP Ruth Eastwood Chief Executive, Leicester Theatre Trust Selene Burn Community Engagement Officer, Birmingham Repertory Theatre Steve Ball Associate Director, Birmingham Repertory Theatre Matt Little Co-Director, Real Ideas Organisation CIC Keith Williams Director, Keith Williams Architects Consultation Changing spaces Andrew Dickson introduced the session with his recollection of a visit to Brasilia and his attempts to access a Niemeyer theatre, which was almost impossible as it was closed during the day, foreshadowing the final presentation of the day by Steve Tompkins Christina Seilern principal architect on the Curve spoke of the theatre turned inside out, a phrase employed by the user group The new vision was to create two flexible people platforms with a grid running across the top of the whole building, seamlessly integrating street, stage and foyer. The concept was for the whole site to be public space. For Seilern, the Curve is about interpretation and possibilities. It embraces three key levels of theatre. stage performance; followed by theatre outside the building and on the street; and finally giving the public sight of the processes by which theatre is made. The street was pedestrianised and the idea was to have an open theatre, with an open extension on to the street. The built environment context changed with the advent of the credit crunch and the planned regeneration of surrounding buildings has halted for now. Inevitably how the building will be read will change over time. Understanding the language Ruth Eastwood, Chief Executive of Leicester Theatres Trust came on board just as the Curve was due to open, so for her, consultation started from the day they opened the doors. The building has customer service staff (not ushers) as it needs people in the building to explain it. She spoke prosaically about their love and understanding of the venue, and its capacity to confound expectations, whilst pointing out that value engineering had resulted in a completed building with a lack of finish, lack of signage, and lack of seating. There is a huge curiosity to understand. And her Saturday theatre tours are all sold out. “If you don’t understand the language, it doesn’t matter what the signage is.” 45% of the audience left at the interval of the initial performance of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, because they didn’t know it hadn’t finished…. The building forces those working in it to constantly rethink.” Ruth Eastwood Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Consultation, engagement, participation Matt Little runs the Real Ideas Organisation whose mission is to help children realise their potential and to design a better future. He gave us some practical tips on how to involve young people meaningfully in the conversation. With the Building Schools For the Future programme in particular, it’s of paramount importance to stipulate in briefs and tender documents how you want to involve young people at the key stages in the design and construction process, so that the successful bidder’s response then becomes part of the contract. Selene Burn and Steve Ball reflected on two consultation exercises for the new project to join up Birmingham Rep and the proposed Library of Birmingham to create a shared foyer and new studio theatre. Ball outlined how building projects have been shown to engender civic pride in Birmingham, so there is confidence in the big picture. In one exercise undergraduate and postgraduate architecture students are acting as trainee architects as a way of placing young people very practically in the process. The Rep has a dozen satellite youth theatres, as a way of engaging with young people in the suburbs who seldom come into the city centre. Burn also explained The Rep is just a small part in a big project, so their options are predetermined. That said, she prefers to use the work “engagement” to “consultation”. The joint exercise with the Library has focused on listening to children and families to make the environment more family-friendly throughout. Feedback was still being analysed, but had highlighted areas such as toilet provision, wayfinding, and the need for changing facilities for adults and children. Keith Williams talked about his work with pupils, begun in 2002, from Tower Bridge Primary School as part of the process of involving young people in the creation of The Unicorn. Around 50 young consultants, many of whom had never experienced theatres before, brought “intelligent, humourous and wildly extravagant” suggestions. The most famous of which was that the floors should be made of chocolate. Health and safety notwithstanding, in preparation for the Trust’s Conference 09, Williams met up with two of the young consultants, Cleo Olukane and Charlie Taylor, four years on. We saw a short film of their conversation as they walked around the Unicorn. They remembered what it was like to be unencumbered by practicalities and ‘think as a child’ again, and reflected on what they had learnt. 09 “Memories are what bring people back… I would love to see different children from different countries, a universal theatre…. Something I haven’t seen before.” Cleo Olukane and Charlie Taylor Panellists round up Andrew Dickson posed the question “when do you shut people out, when do you say: ‘we’re going to do something different’?” Selene Burn was very clear – you keep the conversation going. It’s helpful to be transparent all the time. This of course has budgetary implications, but as Matt Little stressed it’s not a bolt-on, the money needs to be spread across the design development and construction process. “I think your night at the theatre begins the moment you miss the bus because your 10 010 babysitter’s late. The entire experience has to be the best it can. Now we are very creative people, we have theatre lighting and we can make a difference in terms of lighting foyers, but actually it’s not about talking to people, it’s about listening. What we’ve been doing since we opened is collating everything, everything our customers are telling us and doing our best to respond to it.” Ruth Eastwood Last word to Ruth Eastwood for whom a better term than either consultation or engagement was partnership, between theatre companies and architects. Later this relationship was reformulated as a 3-circle Venn diagram, courtesy of Colin Blumenau, with the inclusion of audiences. Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Chair, David Benedict Rob Dickins CBE Chairman, The Theatres Trust Rt Hon Barbara Follett MP Minister for Culture, Creative Industries & Tourism Conference Address Rob Dickins CBE, as Chairman, welcomed all the delegates on behalf of The Theatres Trust. He introduced Barbara Follett MP and thanked her for stepping in at the last minute following a Cabinet reshuffle where Ben Bradshaw replaced Andy Burnham as Culture Secretary. the level of ambition. 10 million visitors, 3.5 million of whom were first time, have opened up new opportunities for tourism and the life of the city. She concluded saying that ‘the play’s the thing’ and that buildings can either enable this engagement or not. He offered us an anecdote of the producer who assured him: “no-one bought a ticket for my play because of the building it was in.” But of course experiencing theatres does matter. Dickins stressed that The Theatres Trust’s mission is about protecting theatres – for everyone, so that people continue to have access to live theatre. Barbara Follett started by saying that with five children, she was well qualified to speak about theatres being ‘family friendly’ and she gave voice to two ‘gripes’ in relation to older theatres - the lack of leg room between seats and the paucity of women’s toilets. Her comments became almost an index throughout the day, on the one hand of flexibility in response to audience’s perceived needs and on the other the capacity to make changes. That said, she spoke of a renaissance over the past decade in terms of government investment in the arts, and people making theatre buildings relevant, accessible and less frightening. ‘A Night Less Ordinary’ is a Government with the Arts Council England initiative to get 18-26 year olds into the theatre, especially those who may not previously have gone, by offering free tickets. She championed the importance of theatres providing aspiration among their communities, and in particular her local theatre, the Gordon Craig in Stevenage. ”Used all the time, beloved by the community, valued as an asset.” Within Hertfordshire, often perceived as a wealthy county, Stevenage has a significant proportion of C2, D and E young people – many of whom have never been to London just down the road. The Gordon Craig enables these young people to be more outward looking and engage with experiences they would never otherwise have. She also spoke about how one of the benefits of Liverpool being Capital of Culture was that it had demonstrably raised Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 11 The first afternoon session looked at how we design theatres to welcome audiences and provide the facilities they need Chair, Bonnie Greer Adam Kenwright Managing Director, aka Morag Myerscough Director, Studio Myerscough Leonie Wallace Head of Visitor Services, Wales Millennium Centre John Botteley Theatre Director, Grand Opera House, Belfast Hosting New York, London (Paris, Munich) Session Chair Bonnie Greer reminded us that experiencing theatre(s) begins in our heads: we move to buildings later on…. “I have been writing theatre since I was eight. The first time I walked into the theatre I was 21 years old.” Adam Kenwright was just off a plane from New York, he pointed out that in the West End we charge £3.50 for a programme: in New York the playbill is given free; there is air conditioning and free iced water readily available. “I think we have an obligation to our theatregoing community, and particularly those people whom we are trying to attract to become theatre goers - to work much harder at making the theatre-going experience more pleasurable.” Adam Kenwright Kenwright wanted a real effort put into the whole theatre-going experience: no booking / transaction fees; weekly focus groups. Picking up on Follett’s earlier theme, he pointed out that 68% of all theatre goers in the West End are women. “Why are we shut on Sundays? It is inconceivable to me that we are the only city in the world that closes our major theatres on a Sunday. The reason is because we pay our staff more than twice what they would earn on a Saturday. It’s a problem for us and we need to make a greater commitment to give audiences what they want when they want. Why are our theatres only used for 21/2 hours a day? Why aren’t we making more effort to make them available and make them open to the communities, to schoolchildren, to young people, to old people, to people who have a desire to learn more during the day?” Signifier and signified Morag Myerscough’s redesign of the wayfinding at the Barbican was all about making better use of the venue. When the Barbican was first built the assumption was that everybody was going to arrive in cars, there was no natural entrance. So until the redesign, as an audience member you had no sense of arrival. There were no landmarks to meet people. The brutalism was looking sad. Organisationally, each department had put up posters and signage ad hoc and piecemeal. There was no overall cohesion. So Myerscough made an entrance… deployed motorway style signage, based on a need to know. She identified the building’s key areas, such as the places where people move up and down and created “signage that works with the brutalism”, designing large floor level signs with the use of silhouette and light, which incorporated and showed off the concrete. Giving voice – buildings which speak The Wales Millennium Centre, Leonie Wallace informed us, was the first new national cultural institution in 50 years. Inspired by Welsh traditions and the landscape it has a poem in Welsh and English carved into its fabric. The building is designed “from the street to the seat” to make an emotional connection. As the audience comes through the front door they enter into the concourse, and their eye is drawn to the ticket counter (the Adam Kenwright Kenwright was unequivocal to the end. ”We need to make use of the extraordinary buildings we have.” 12 012 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 longest in the world). In such an open, expansive and tranquil space, the challenge is to create intimacy. Wallace noted that buildings drive behaviour. or toilets on the ground floor; a box office fit just for selling boxes; dark, dingy and narrow bars with huge serving counters; the theatre was closed during the day and office staff were either off site or in a portacabin. “The architect’s vision is still relevant today In 2003 the theatre appointed architects, RHWL Arts Team to but the centre has evolved an awful lot over look at providing increased public space; full access for people the last five years and continually presents us with disabilities; catering facilities for all-day opening; a studio with customer and operational challenges. The theatre; dressing rooms; offices on site and three times the biggest challenge for myself and my team is number of ladies toilets. As well as a new dressing room and office block, behind the theatre, this produced a new signature to find solutions to those problems of working building facing the street adjacent to the existing theatre, with big within the original premise and design and the original intention of Jonathan’s concept or ideas open foyers and a more usable box office; balconies with bar and restaurant facilities where people could look down from above; The main auditorium requires about 35 staff and a new studio theatre which opens up into the foyer. on a sell-out night and this is partly due to the design of the auditorium. There is not one single “It’s not only about the audience experience, but staircase, but two different staircases and it keeping the building alive. Our earned income instantly doubles staff numbers.” from our foyers has tripled since we’ve done that Leonie Wallace extension. Because we’re open all day tourists are flooding in to have a cup of coffee during Public space the morning so that they can see the Matcham John Botteley is Theatre Manager of The Grand Opera House, auditorium. It is not one or the other it really is Belfast. Built by Matcham in 1895, by the 1960s it was derelict. In the 1970s the Arts Council of Northern Ireland saved it. It was about both.” reopened in 1980, when the architect Robert McKinstry restored it. Next to the most bombed hotel in Europe, there were no bars Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 John Botteley 13 John E McGrath invited contributors to speak about the relationship between theatre architecture and the influence theatres have on our lives Chair, John E McGrath Artistic Director, National Theatre Wales Nicky & Lee Caulfield Save Waltham Forest Theatre Colin Blumenau Artistic Director, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Jenny Sealey MBE Artistic Director/CEO, Graeae Theatre Steve Tompkins Director, Haworth Tompkins Influencing John E McGrath introduced this session as all about influencing: how theatre people hopefully influence artists to do extraordinary things; how architects influence theatre people to re-imagine what they can do and crucially how audiences influence space and space influences audiences. Another part of the Waltham Forest: Young cultural entrepreneurs Nicky and Lee Caulfield are 16-year-old twin boys from the Waltham Forest Theatre campaign to save the only theatre in Waltham Forest under the slogan ‘One community one theatre’. They currently attend college in Walthamstow and are studying business studies, performance studies, theatre technology and media studies. They started the campaign because Waltham Forest Council and the friends of Lloyd’s Park have plans to refurbish Lloyd’s Park, and part of their plan is to demolish the theatre. The Council applied for Lottery funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund for £3.6 million and so far they’ve got through to their stage one bid. The theatre was built in the 1930s and means a lot to the community. Inclusivity Colin Blumenau spoke with a very cogent contemporary vision about the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds. He had been responsible for restoring one of the oldest theatres in the country built in 1819. A Regency period theatre, designed by William Wilkins, Blumenau praised him for understanding that the three parts to a theatre: the auditorium, the performance space and what goes on behind, are all united and deliver an experience that is ‘inclusive rather than observational’. It is this ability to be inclusive that influences audiences. Jenny Sealey felt that it was important that every single member of staff from the cleaner to the chair of the board can describe the experience of walking through the front doors. It’s important to know where everything is because you might have a blind audience member who wants a description of the theatre they are about to enter. This was contrasted with a workshop in which she had participated. For the first “Our borough has no cinema and no longer has a dog track. Our dream is to refurbish the theatre and create it into a multi use venue. We wanted to get the community involved so that we had everyone’s views. Memories of performing at the theatre are extremely important to people, youngsters performing at the theatre for the first time.” Nicky and Lee Caulfield The twins decided to set up an organisation called Stage Services to benefit Waltham Forest, Dagenham and Redbridge, Hackney in London. They want to give young people their age and older the opportunity to work with theatrical equipment, because at present in their borough they have no theatre. “We decided instead of not having a theatre we would bring a theatre to them.” Nicky and Lee Caulfield 014 14 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 exercise participants were asked to take their shoes off, and put their feet on the floor. Not everyone was wearing shoes; not everyone could put their feet on the floor - and not everyone had feet. So there were some assumptions being made. Sealey pointed out that disability is a very individual experience, but access and equal engagement is a collective experience. So how to bridge this apparent gap? Sealey then gave some positive examples of access and inclusion. She thought her biggest influence had been in her working relationship with Birmingham Rep, which she described as her second home. Because it’s been a collaborative engagement – they go back all the time - the attitude to access is simply can do. The previous day, Sealey had got the keys to Graeae’s new building. “Now sadly under used and cripplingly expensive to maintain the building is revealed as an exotic dinosaur, fossilised in a moment of history unable to adapt to changing tastes and changing priorities, but because it fails to connect the gaps between civic ambition, architectural single-mindedness, theatrical adaptability of human nature it is now iconic for all the wrong reasons”. Steve Tompkins In another district of San Paolo across the city is the second space - which Tompkins described as “unremarkable from the street and breaks nearly every rule in the theatre design guide and would never survive an Arts Council review”. The 400 seat Teatro Oficina is the wrong shape - it’s 42 “It is not a theatre but it will be a place where x 8 m long. According to Tompkins, the seats are not that theatre is made. A place where we don’t have to comfortable, but nobody complains. There are no daytime worry about access because it really is all there. catering facilities apart from the street itself where there are dozens of coffee bars. The foyer in the evening is mostly under Access is not only about loops, ramps, disabled toilets; it’s a word that is rooted in an emotional, the flyover across the road where market stalls make way for a bar. There’s no rehearsal room, conference room, bookshop, attitudinal, practical and functional engagement. or fly tower. The dressing rooms, offices and wardrobes The foundation of access is the quality of perch above the stage, connecting with the auditorium and respect and diversity…. CARE is a funny word each other by ladders, spirals and long ramps’. There is a tree growing through one wall, a roof that retracts to see to be associated with Graeae (given the history the stars, a fireplace and scaffold seating structure on three of disabled people and their institutional interconnecting levels. treatment). CARE means creating artistic rigourous engagement, and that’s what has “But for all its apparent informality this gone into our building. I hope that our ongoing is no accidental or haphazard space. collaboration and influence can carry on, and Painstakingly designed on a shoestring people will come and visit our building and ask budget by the inspirational Italian Brazilian questions to know how access can work.” architect Lina Do Bardi, it can be seen as the Jenny Sealey missing link between found space and new build theatres. In the evenings it acts as the Oscar and Oficina Steve Tompkins used slides to illustrate two contrasting perfect host to its audiences despite its lack Sao Paolo theatres. The first was the auditorium of the Latin of facilities, making them feel comfortable American Memorial campus by Oscar Niemeyer, a student both as a group and in their own skins. of Le Corbusier and architect of international repute. It was The architectural sincerity of this theatre much praised and much photographed upon its completion, is breathtaking. It’s done all the things that but when Tompkins visited a generation later the building was almost completely moribund. local authorities, architects and practitioners Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 15 here in the UK dream about. It ordered the map of its neighbourhood at grassroots level, brought cultural focus and local pride to a diverse working class community and established a profile far beyond San Paolo because it is an authentic, rigourous theatre space producing extraordinary life enhancing work.” Steve Tompkins For Tompkins’ studio it’s one of the most influential buildings as much for its ethical implications as for its aesthetic language. All of their theatre projects concentrate on the idea of a more active engagement between the theatre, the city and the community. “I think to some extent we need to fall in love with each other and that means trusting each other; being vulnerable to stupid ideas; being shot down in flames. I think it means spending enough time with each other. It means learning what each other’s particular dialect… all of this, I think, can only happen (like any relationship) given enough time and space and freedom to discover what the relationship is going to be”. Steve Tompkins 16 016 Who designs the theatre? In the discussion Andrew Todd, architect of the CQS space at the Old Vic, reiterated that all of these examples arise only from a relationship of a certain ethical and emotional maturity between the designer and client - and that relationship can only work when the client brings a lot to the table, is demanding and also extremely wise in the way that they run their institution. Architect Mark Foley has been involved with the designing many types of theatre spaces. For him, underpinning the many approaches to designing good theatre spaces, was the craft of the architect involved. Ben Todd had another view on the ideas of specialist craft, and space… “I wanted to ask all the expertise in this room - how far can we stretch the kind of Steve (Tompkins) approach where you don’t just take a building and start to adapt it, you literally just take a space and start to work? The stuff that Jenny (Sealey) was talking about, can we actually have community build a theatre - don’t consult them on it, just invite them to build it? Come along in your wheelchair and if that bar’s too high tell the guy to chop 6 inches off the bottom of it. How far can we really seriously push these boundaries?” Dr Ben Todd, Arcola Theatre Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Audience design principles The following principles emerged during the course of the day and are drawn directly from the proceedings. They are intended to be an aide memoire, a potential set of references to guide further action and complement the design principles from the Trust’s Conferences in 2007 and 2008. reflect audiences different sizes, eye levels, and heights to appreciate what relationships the audience will have to the stage. Transformation Consultation Audiences are not add-ons in the design process. They are not simply spectators or consumers. What quality of theatre experience will audiences have? Understanding that theatre is a process of two-way communication is essential to designing a successful auditorium. What you call your process matters. Is it consultation, engagement, partnership, collaboration or something else? Above all it is a conversation, often ongoing, which involves and responds to existing and potential audiences and is about creating the spaces they want to love. An intimate-feeling auditorium helps to energise the space, but the scale, and the comfort and number of seats will not necessarily be the main factors in achieving this. The closer audience members are to the stage and their capacity to sense each other are both important in focusing the energy in the space. Think carefully about how you want to engage with users, managing expectations of audiences involvement and being clear with them about potential outcomes. Consider the need for humility over professional prowess. Try not to allow the requirements of the capital project management to derail the conversation. Ambiance builds anticipation and helps the audience to locate themselves in the space ready for the performance. This can be enhanced with careful consideration of decoration, texture, colour, acoustics, sight-lines and other factors in the spatial and interior design of the auditorium. Factor in enough time in the design process to build a developed understanding of the subtle relationship between a theatre’s purpose and its audiences. Instil a sense of expectation. The making and remaking of the “contract” between the audience and the actors is part of the experience of returning again and again to the same theatre. Being able to reconfigure the auditorium to accommodate production requirements and new seating layouts introduces the unexpected and can make it feel as if it is a newly ‘found’ space. Carefully consider the aesthetic of the auditorium in relation to how it will be used and viewed. Design neutrality doesn’t exist. Even a plain Black Box auditorium has a personality which tells an audience what to feel. The auditorium also provides the creative production team with a canvas within which it paints the performance. Some may be blank, as in the Black Box, others will come with their own decoration which needs to be worked in. Design in the audience using the tools of the set designer including 1:25 scale models and CAD modelling techniques to Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Aim to accommodate everyone. Audiences may come in groups of similar and different ages, disabilities, and experiences of being a theatre audience. Consider how the auditorium will deliver a sense of respect and inclusion for everyone and enable those responsible for managing the space to achieve this. Accept anger or apparent negativity towards change and use it as a pretext to continue and develop the conversation. Enable audiences to discover the theatre and they will become advocates. Explain and guide people through designs, sites and theatres, help them to understand the language. Involve theatre staff in the process as they should be able to describe the theatre to audiences. Write your consultation process into your design brief and construction contracts. If the local authority, architect and contractor are not contractually signed up to consulting it will be much harder to introduce further down the line. Enable young people to play a meaningful part in the consultation process. Identify very early on in tender documents, especially in Building for Schools projects, that the supplier must be prepared to work with young people. Timing is crucial to be able to write this into contracts. 17 Value young people’s ideas and give them access to big decisions. Find young people who are genuinely interested, connect them to the right people and listen directly to their views. Ensure they can see specific and concrete consequences. Create depth of engagement: it’s better to do something small and significant, than many things that have no impact. Support them and be prepared to change your behaviour to accommodate their needs. Put in a programme of support. Design and re-design front of house facilities to cater for everyone. Train staff to anticipate and respond to customer needs, and feed customers views back into the way the building is used and can be improved. Hosting The audience’s experience starts with the journey to the theatre. The experience of the theatre starts well before arriving at the venue: booking tickets, possibly arranging care for children, and travelling. The theatre has to be prepared. Can audiences easily locate the theatre, intuitively find the entrance, then know where to go to find facilities. Can they sit down? Will they have places to change and cloakrooms? Will your theatre make them feel at ease? It should be straight forward to describe the route from the front door to the auditorium. It’s important to understand how visitors might experience the building. Is there a sense of arrival? Way-finding and signage should be thought about during the design stage, potentially reflected as part of the architecture, not laid on afterwards. Incorporate the senses in foyer design. Visitors can be led instinctively to areas by the smell of coffee, the sound of performances, or the use of light. In new theatres go beyond the minimum requirements for facilities. For example, work out how many toilets you’ll need for those using them in the 20 minute interval without queues forming. Also remember that groups of disabled people with varying individual needs go to the theatre together. Explore ways to tell people on the outside what’s going on in the inside. Websites, backstage tours, and special events all help audiences to engage with every aspect of your building, before and during their visits. Consider the narrative of the 18 018 building, its story in physical space, its history, its design and layout, its ambience and intimacy, its present and its future possibilities, and how these are communicated to audiences. Are the ancillary spaces only ancillary? See your theatre in its totality. The design, usability, and design aesthetic of restaurants, bars, lounges, VIP areas, event spaces, outside areas, wifi points, and education spaces all help to develop the personality of the theatre. Creating great spaces where social interactions can take place helps to drive revenue streams, and enrich the conversations with your audiences. They are part of the story you tell. Influencing Successful theatres are part of a city and part of community, and should be viewed as ‘social capital’. Understand what makes a theatre loved by the people that use and work in it, the memories a theatre holds, why these are important, and build on them. Theatres are about communities as well as bricks and mortar. Encourage and support young advocates. Young people want to make a difference to the community and other young people’s lives. Listen to their passion, activism, and entrepreneurship. Theatre buildings have the capacity to drive the behaviour of audiences. The challenge is to make a space feel owned by its audiences: offering artistic risk, excitement, anticipation, subversion, and the unexpectedly expected; whilst enabling confidence, respect, and emotional security. Make the theatre inclusive and accessible. In a theatre access and human engagement should be an equal and collective experience; creating artistic rigorous engagement, or CARE. Existing constraints can lead to creativity if the artistic influence is clear, particularly in the process of designing and building a theatre. Create artistic narratives which illustrate and incorporate contemporary connections that audiences can make with historic buildings. A theatre’s influence can be measured by a three circle Venn diagram. Each of the circles represents the artist, the architect and the audience; the greater the commonality of interests, the greater their cross over. Strong relationships between the three are the key to a successful, influential theatre. Stay focused on the dymanic exchange throughout. Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Attenders Katy Alexander Charcoalblue Ltd John Allen Northern Light Peter Angier Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants Cany Ash Ash Sakula Deborah Aydon Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse Matthew Baker Tim Foster Architects Chris Baldwin ACT Consultant Services Steve Ball Birmingham Repertory Theatre Lalayn Baluch The Stage Andrew Barker Darren Barker Great Yarmouth Borough Council Jason Barnes The Theatres Trust Daniel Bates York Theatre Royal David Beidas New Stages Ltd David Benedict Conference 09 Chair Ken Bennett-Hunter Petrus Bertschinger Conference 09 Production Peter Bingham Central School of Speech & Drama Fran Birch The Theatres Trust John Bishop Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants James Blackman Lyric Hammersmith Andrzej Blonski LCE Andrzej Blonski Architects Colin Blumenau Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds David Blyth Ambassador Theatre Group Rick Bond The Complete Works John Botteley Grand Opera House, Belfast Mike Bradford Birmingham Hippodrome Richard Brett Theatreplan LLP Matt Britton Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants Richard Bunn Arup Acoustics Selene Burn Birmingham Repertory Theatre Liz Bury AMPC Ltd Olivia Campbell Stadia and Auditoria Magazine Kate Carmichael The Theatres Trust Jill Caulfield Lee Caulfield Save Waltham Forest Theatre Nicky Caulfield Save Waltham Forest Theatre Simon Chaplin Cheetham’s School of Music Lesley Chenery Octagon Theatre, Bolton Colin Chester Ambassador Theatre Group David Clark Max Fordham LLP John Clark Acuity Management Solutions Wil Cleary The Circus Space Adam Coleman Lyric Hammersmith Paul Connolly The Theatres Trust Isaac Conroy Rose Bruford College Paul Covell Paul Covell Consultants Ted Craig Warehouse Theatre Paul Crosbie Charcoalblue Ltd Colin Cuthbert Northern Light Chris Daniel Charcoalblue Ltd Roxy Daniells Sheffield Theatres Trust Paul Davies Richard De Boise Tim Foster Architects Andrew Decarteret Burrell Foley Fischer Rob Dickins CBE The Theatres Trust Andrew Dickson The Guardian Russell Duly Live Nation (Venues) UK Ltd Christopher Durham The Point, Eastleigh Ruth Eastwood Leicester Theatre Trust Barbara Eifler Stage Management Association Simon Erridge Bennetts Associates Alistair Fair Alan Baxter & Associates Andrew Filmer Aberystwyth University Sonya Flynn Charcoalblue Ltd Mark Foley Burrell Foley Fischer Rt Hon Barbara Follet MP Minister for Culture, Creative Industries & Tourism Tim Foster Tim Foster Architects Paul Franklin Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants Dominic Fraser The Old Vic Rose Freeman The Theatres Trust Allegra Galvin Cambridge University Mrs Gee Gavin Green Charcoalblue Ltd Bonnie Greer Simon Harper Royal Shakespeare Company Marie Hartley Great Yarmouth Borough Council Martin Hawthorn Hawthorns Andy Hayles Charcoalblue Ltd Luke Haywood Rose Bruford College Nick Helm Octagon Theatre, Bolton Duncan Hendry His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen Roger Hennigan White Light Ltd Vikki Heywood Royal Shakespeare Company Judith Hibberd Arts Council England Nigel Hinds Stephen Hing Drivers Jonas Chris Honer Manchester Library Theatre Peter Hooper University College Falmouth Arnot Hughes Lawray Architects Jeff Hyatt Delfont Mackintosh Theatres Tony Jay Wales Millennium Centre Innes Johnston Max Fordham LLP Stephen Jolly Buro Happold Ltd Paul Jozefowski NT Future David Jubb Battersea Arts Centre Adam Kenwright aka Noel Kirby John O’Neill & Partners Ian Knowles Arup Acoustics Pauleen Lane CBE The Theatres Trust John Langley National Theatre May Lee Hawthorns Allan Leiper John O’Neill & Partners Jane Lemon Ambassador Theatre Group Mark Lewis Levitt Bernstein Graham Lister Matt Little Real Ideas Organisation CIC Robert Longthorne Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse Brian Loudon Festival City Theatres Trust Charles MacKeith Research Design Barbara Matthews Arts Council England Gillian McCutcheon Suzanne McDougall The Theatres Trust Alex McGowan Unicorn Theatre John E McGrath National Theatre Wales Keith McLaren Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants Jonathan Meth Conference 09 Reporter Stephen Midlane Polka Theatre Russell Miller Ambassador Theatre Group Anne Minors AMPC Ltd Alison Minto Arts Council England Martin Moore James Morse Light and Design Associates Chris Moxon Unicorn Theatre Joan Moynihan Nimax Theatres John Muir John Murphy Murphy Design Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Morag Myerscough Studio Myerscough John Nicholls Arts Quarter LLP Rachel Nicholson Rose Bruford College Caroline Noteboom Theateradvies BV Rory Olcayto The Architects’ Journal Jason Osterman Theatre Projects Consultants Gavin Owen Charcoalblue Ltd Mark Owen Buro Happold Ltd Tom Piper Royal Shakespeare Company Matthew Pitman Martin Professional Mark Price The Theatres Trust Barry Pritchard Arts Team @ RHWL Juliet Quintero LCE Andrzej Blonski Architects Scott Ramsay Harlow Playhouse Emma Rice Kneehigh Theatre Chris Ricketts Sherman Cymru Luke Robson Central School of Speech & Drama Tim Ronalds Tim Foster Architects Elliott Rose Unicorn Theatre Geoffrey Rowe Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham Peter Ruthven Hall Theatreplan LLP Claire Saddleton See a Voice Mhora Samuel The Theatres Trust Emma Savage Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants Nikki Scott Stage Technologies Jenny Sealey MBE Graeae Theatre Christina Seilern Studio Seilern Architects LLP Caroline Sharman New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth Gillian Shaw Scottish Arts Council Andy Shewan Unicorn Theatre Ruth Smallshaw Theatre Projects Consultants Alistair Smith The Stage Ian Smith King Shaw Associates Roger Spence Mick Spratt Wigwam Acoustics Ltd Judith Strong Arts & Architecture Projects Graham Sykes Prince of Wales Theatre Flip Tanner Royal Shakespeare Company David Taylor Arup David Taylor Sheppard Robson David Thacker Octagon Theatre, Bolton James Thomas Charcoalblue Ltd Pat Thomas OBE The Theatres Trust Neil Thomson Grand Theatre, Blackpool Andrew Todd Andrew Todd Studios Dr Ben Todd Arcola Theatre Steve Tompkins Haworth Tompkins Robin Townley DanceEast Ben Twist The Theatres Trust Leonie Wallace Wales Millennium Centre Nicola Walls Page/Park Architects Trevor Watson Davis Coffer Lyons Mark White ETC Andrew Wilie Buro Happold Ltd Keith Williams Keith Williams Architects Caz Williamson Conference 09 Consultant Edmund Wilson Tim Foster Architects Liz Wilson Oldham Coliseum Theatre Peter Wilson Royal Shakespeare Company Sandy Wright Wright & Wright Architects John Young Ambassador Theatre Group 19 Published September 2009 © The Theatres Trust 22 Charing Cross Road London WC2H 0QL T 020 7836 8591 F 020 7836 3302 [email protected] www.theatrestrust.org.uk