Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009

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Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 02 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres

Contents

Mhora Samuel Director, The Theatres Trust...... 04 David Benedict Conference 09 Chair...... 05 Introduction...... 06 Transformation...... 07 Consultation...... 09 Conference Address...... 11 Hosting...... 12 Influencing...... 14 Audience Design Principles...... 17 Attenders...... 19

Conference Chairs Colin Blumenau Artistic Director, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds David Benedict Jenny Sealey MBE Artistic Director/CEO, Graeae Theatre Andrew Dickson Steve Tompkins Director, Haworth Tompkins Bonnie Greer John E McGrath Artistic Director, National Theatre Wales Conference 09 Reporter Jonathan Meth Executive Director, Theatre Is… Contributors Rt Hon Barbara Follett MP Minister for Culture, Creative Industries & Tourism Conference 09 Photographer Vikki Heywood Executive Director, Royal Shakespeare Company Edward Webb Tom Piper Associate Designer, Royal Shakespeare Company Dominic Fraser Production Manager, Conference 09 Production Manager Chris Honer Artistic Director, Manchester Library Theatre Company Petrus Bertschinger Emma Rice Artistic Director, Kneehigh Theatre Christina Seilern Principal, Studio Seilern Architects LLP Conference 09 Development Consultant Ruth Eastwood Chief Executive, Leicester Theatre Trust Caz Williamson Selene Burn Community Engagement Officer, Birmingham Repertory Theatre Steve Ball Associate Director, Birmingham Repertory Theatre Theatres Trust Conference 09 Staff Matt Little Co-Director, Real Ideas Organisation CIC Mhora Samuel Director Keith Williams Director, Keith Williams Architects Suzanne McDougall Assistant to the Director Rob Dickins CBE Chairman, The Theatres Trust Kate Carmichael Resources Officer Adam Kenwright Managing Director, aka Damian Le Sueur Website & Design Creative Morag Myerscough Director, Studio Myerscough Fran Birch Records Officer Leonie Wallace Head of Visitor Services, Wales Millennium Centre Paul Connolly Administrator John Botteley Theatre Director, Grand Opera House, Belfast Mark Price Architecture and Planning Adviser Nicky & Lee Caulfield Save Waltham Forest Theatre Rose Freeman Planning Assistant

Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 03 Mhora Samuel Director, The Theatres Trust

Theatres attract audiences by providing and listening to audiences. My thanks go live theatre and entertainment experiences to the many contributors and sponsors, the that appeal and stir the emotions. As a Unicorn, conference staff, and volunteers consequence theatres become part of who helped make the conference happen. individual and collective memories and shape individuals’ lives, long after the experience We also returned to the ways in which of a particular show or performer is over. we engage with audiences, pull them into Theatres are places where we live those the process of improving the theatres experiences and where we recall those special experience, and the importance of memories; triggered by passing the outside of ongoing conversations to inform and a building, remembering what it was like to manage expectations, and having those sit in a particular seat, or the emotions shared conversations with young people. with the people we were with, the actors on stage, and the theatre staff who looked after us. So, for Conference 2010, Designing School Theatres, we want to take this design We discovered at this year’s conference that conversation into the area of education. It it’s this social capital that ensures theatres will take place slightly earlier in the year punch above their weight in the influence on the 26 April 2010 in Leeds, and look at they have on our lives. We looked at the the design of theatres co-located or within responsibility theatre designers have for schools, colleges and higher education delivering this social capital and ensuring institutions; the challenges of designing access through enabling respect. And we theatres that feel and work like theatres discovered how the ongoing process of whilst also serving a range of educational, theatre design and the facilities offered by learning and community needs; their a theatre are integral to audience loyalty relationship to other theatres in their cities and development. Throughout the day and towns; and the role they play in shaping contributors and attenders eloquently the next generation of theatre activists, talked of the importance of engaging with artists and audiences.

04 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 David Benedict Conference 09 Chair

It’s good to talk… Theatre is a two-way communication and this must be the guiding design principle. I opened the Trust’s Conference 09 by saying The creation of the most fully energised that the day was about sharing information spaces and buildings can only be achieved and inspiring each other, and reminding us via a truly collaborative process between all of two quotes. From Richard Eyre: ‘Theatre the architect, the artist and the audience. is an art form which can never dissolve the scale of the human figure, the sound of the We had more than our share of inspiring human voice, and our desire to tell each other moments, from Nicky and Lee Caulfield’s stories’. And from playwright Bryony Lavery: passion for saving their theatre in ‘Theatre is about everybody breathing the Waltham Forest, to Ruth Eastwood’s true same air, so they have the same experience, commitment to her audiences at the Curve, at the same time. A play is called a play to Vikki Heywood’s vision for the RSC to because it’s a divine game between you and perform in a theatre that physically reaches the audience, played out with actors’. Those out into its audience. quotes emphasise the same thing: whether it’s an intimate drama in a black box studio, or the What became strikingly clear was that grand passions of opera on a vast lyric stage, theatre design needs to be more sensitive theatre is about human interaction. to audiences’ expectations. Factoring in enough time to build upon a properly Building a theatre is, at root, about creating developed understanding of the subtle a space where narratives are shared. relationship between a theatre’s purpose Throughout the day, we kept returning to and its audiences is crucial. We can – and the role of the audience and the inescapable must – be better at engaging with and fact that with regard to the design and build listening to audiences. That dialogue is a of a theatre, the audience cannot simply be defining element of the story and an abiding an add-on. They are not simply spectators. influence on good design.

Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 05 Introduction

Theatre makers, architects, designers, chief This doesn’t mean that we are all now executives, impresarios, industry specialists specialists, rather that architects, theatre and young activists came together at The makers and audiences come together to Unicorn Theatre in in June 2009 negotiate . The building process to explore different approaches to theatre becomes a conversation. A conversation which architecture and design, and how these continues and evolves long after the building approaches affect and involve audiences. is (re)opened. That young people are crucial to this process permeated the day, from the live The day was shaped around four passionate conviction of Waltham Forest’s Lee conversations: transformation, consultation, and Nicky Caulfield to the articulate two young hosting and influencing, punctuated at the consultants, Cleo Olukane and Charlie Taylor mid point by our conference address from from the Unicorn on film. Barbara Follett. The Conference acknowledged that the We were guided effortlessly through the day process of commissioning and procuring by Conference chair David Benedict, who buildings is something which can all too easily was ably supported by session chairs Andrew derail this conversation. But can we take Dickson, Bonnie Greer and John E. McGrath. the opportunity to go beyond the minimum? So when everyone wants to go the toilet at This report offers selected highlights the same time, in the West End 68% of them from the impressive array of speakers and women, they can. When hosting a group of the lively engagement arising from their disabled people, who have varying individual high quality and diverse presentations. It needs, but might also want to experience concludes with a number of audience design theatres as a group, they can. Let’s move the principles drawn from the day. horizon beyond basic level compliance.

Through successive generations coming It’s well worth our collective investment. As anew to buildings, audiences shape the Theatres Trust Chair Rob Dickins said, “We history of theatres. The recent shift in the must make the experience better, but let’s perception of of audiences within not think that that’s going to make or break the design process is akin to the shift online it. Because we have the one experience from a www 1.0 world to a 2.0 one: specialists that people cannot get. They can download provide content and gatekeepers control, computer games, they can download almost shifts to the experience being co-created. anything - except live music and live theatre”.

06 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 David Benedict asked five leading Chair, David Benedict Vikki Heywood theatre practitioners to consider how Executive Director, Royal Shakespeare Company auditoria designs affect audiences and Tom Piper Associate Designer, Royal Shakespeare Company audience development Dominic Fraser Production Manager, The Old Vic Chris Honer Artistic Director, Manchester Library Theatre Company Emma Rice Artistic Director, Kneehigh Theatre

Transformation Attachment to the design, the building or the idea of the building? Testing emerged as another important recurrent theme for the Intimacy day. Piper cited Charcoalblue and their virtual modelling tools for Vikki Heywood talked about the proportions of intimacy in such facets as the sightlines of individual seats. relation to the RSC’s Courtyard and new Royal Shakespeare Theatre space: the RSC had quantified 1,050 seats as its limit. “The Swan Theatre has a huge personality. But She spoke of ”a democratic theatre” and then contrasted “an when we looked at our audience surveys it endlessly flexible space” with a “thrust design for audiences and actors to share the same space”, and set one of the central actually came out quite badly on things like questions for the day: does real engagement with audience sightlines and seat comfort, yet somehow it is the come through a flexible, mutable space which might also be theatre that people love the most… And so I neutral – or from a signature design which will need to stand the think one of the things that we’ve learnt from the renegotiation of several different generations of audience? theatre architecture of the 50s and 60s is that “Good seats are not always where the audience expects”, actually comfort, good sightlines and all of those Heywood reminded us - which foreshadowed Emma Rice’s subsequent assertion that “people will tell you what they think things, aren’t necessarily what make great they want, which is not necessarily what they actually want…” theatre spaces…. I think more and more people Tom Piper gave us a more visual index of intimacy by contrasting are engaging with buildings with personality.” photographs taken of the relative sizes of the RST stage space Tom Piper to that of the audience space: from 15% in the old theatre to 45% in the new. 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 Just do it? In 1980 Kneehigh inherited the Cornish audience legacy of Benedict asked at what point in the process the audience Footsbarn as the latter left for France. Back then there were is involved. Heywood was very clear, once the team had no theatres in , so performances happened wherever. decided on the thrust stage, the audience was then When Emma Rice arrived in 1992 she found “a barn, a beach consulted. The Old Vic, under the time pressures of a three and a group of weather-beaten, mad, sexy people”. The barn week turnaround and as a temporary experiment, didn’t is a creative space in which the company cooks, chops wood, engage with audiences until the first performance. The plays instruments, eats, drinks and parties, as well as making Library Theatre framed its consultation in terms of “we’d theatre. There is no mobile phone coverage. Work is formed like to do this because…what do you think?” Honer was by where it sits; it is visual as there is so little control over surprised by the vehemence of the reaction to proposed the acoustics. In Restornwall Castle, the audience sat on changes from older audience members. From the floor hay bails. took Kneehigh principles into the Sandy Wright, the architect of the new Hull Truck Theatre West End: exciting, unexpected, welcoming – in this case the turned this into a strength as they “looked at other places, temporary communion, in the old Carlton Cinema – of eating learnt what worked, and ended up using the old theatre popcorn, snogging and the magic of that particular barn… template, capitalising on what their audiences liked”. Mark Foley raised the question of the aesthetics underpinning “We’re going to build it individually for each Black Box theatre design – and their impact on audiences. show, and let the work lead and let the story Jason Barnes made a plea for colour and texture: changing the “temperature” of a building, letting the story lead and lead, because really that’s the way sometimes a gave us Breughel to populate our thinking and our modelling show wants to be, in the round… you can feel the with real people. mechanics of the theatre happening around you.” Emma Rice

08 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Andrew Dickson invited panellists to look Chair, Andrew Dickson Christina Seilern at why we should engage audiences Principal, Studio Seilern Architects LLP in theatres design and how best to go Ruth Eastwood Chief Executive, Leicester Theatre Trust about it 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 Consultation, engagement, participation Matt Little runs the Real Ideas Organisation whose mission is to help children realise their potential and to design a better Changing spaces future. He gave us some practical tips on how to involve Andrew Dickson introduced the session with his recollection young people meaningfully in the conversation. With the of a visit to Brasilia and his attempts to access a Niemeyer Building Schools For the Future programme in particular, theatre, which was almost impossible as it was closed during it’s of paramount importance to stipulate in briefs and the day, foreshadowing the final presentation of the day by tender documents how you want to involve young people at Steve Tompkins the key stages in the design and construction process, so that the successful bidder’s response then becomes part of Christina Seilern principal architect on the Curve spoke of the the contract. theatre turned inside out, a phrase employed by the user group The new vision was to create two flexible people platforms with Selene Burn and Steve Ball reflected on two consultation a grid running across the top of the whole building, seamlessly exercises for the new project to join up Birmingham integrating street, stage and foyer. The concept was for the Rep and the proposed Library of Birmingham to create whole site to be public space. For Seilern, the Curve is about a shared foyer and new studio theatre. Ball outlined how interpretation and possibilities. It embraces three key levels of building projects have been shown to engender civic pride theatre. stage performance; followed by theatre outside the in Birmingham, so there is confidence in the big picture. In building and on the street; and finally giving the public sight one exercise undergraduate and postgraduate architecture of the processes by which theatre is made. The street was students are acting as trainee architects as a way of placing pedestrianised and the idea was to have an open theatre, with young people very practically in the process. The Rep has an open extension on to the street. The built environment context a dozen satellite youth theatres, as a way of engaging with changed with the advent of the credit crunch and the planned young people in the suburbs who seldom come into the city regeneration of surrounding buildings has halted for now. centre. Burn also explained The Rep is just a small part in a Inevitably how the building will be read will change over time. big project, so their options are predetermined. That said, she prefers to use the work “engagement” to “consultation”. Understanding the language The joint exercise with the Library has focused on listening Ruth Eastwood, Chief Executive of Leicester Theatres Trust to children and families to make the environment more came on board just as the Curve was due to open, so for her, family-friendly throughout. Feedback was still being consultation started from the day they opened the doors. The analysed, but had highlighted areas such as toilet provision, building has customer service staff (not ushers) as it needs wayfinding, and the need for changing facilities for adults people in the building to explain it. She spoke prosaically about and children. their love and understanding of the venue, and its capacity to confound expectations, whilst pointing out that value engineering Keith Williams talked about his work with pupils, begun had resulted in a completed building with a lack of finish, lack in 2002, from Primary School as part of the of signage, and lack of seating. There is a huge curiosity to process of involving young people in the creation of The understand. And her Saturday theatre tours are all sold out. Unicorn. Around 50 young consultants, many of whom had never experienced theatres before, brought “intelligent, “If you don’t understand the language, it humourous and wildly extravagant” suggestions. The most doesn’t matter what the signage is.” 45% of the famous of which was that the floors should be made of audience left at the interval of the initial chocolate. Health and safety notwithstanding, in preparation for the Trust’s Conference 09, Williams met up with two of performance of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, the young consultants, Cleo Olukane and Charlie Taylor, four because they didn’t know it hadn’t finished…. years on. We saw a short film of their conversation as they The building forces those working in it to walked around the Unicorn. They remembered what it was like constantly rethink.” to be unencumbered by practicalities and ‘think as a child’ again, and reflected on what they had learnt. Ruth Eastwood

Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 09 “Memories are what bring people back… I babysitter’s late. The entire experience has to would love to see different children from be the best it can. Now we are very creative different countries, a universal theatre…. people, we have theatre lighting and we can Something I haven’t seen before.” make a difference in terms of lighting foyers, Cleo Olukane and Charlie Taylor but actually it’s not about talking to people, it’s about listening. What we’ve been doing Panellists round up Andrew Dickson posed the question “when do you shut since we opened is collating everything, people out, when do you say: ‘we’re going to do something everything our customers are telling us and different’?” Selene Burn was very clear – you keep the doing our best to respond to it.” conversation going. It’s helpful to be transparent all the time. Ruth Eastwood This of course has budgetary implications, but as Matt Little stressed it’s not a bolt-on, the money needs to be spread Last word to Ruth Eastwood for whom a better term than across the design development and construction process. either consultation or engagement was partnership, between theatre companies and architects. Later this relationship was “I think your night at the theatre begins the reformulated as a 3-circle Venn diagram, courtesy of Colin moment you miss the bus because your Blumenau, with the inclusion of audiences.

10010 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 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. Rob Dickins CBE, as Chairman, welcomed all the delegates on behalf of The Theatres Trust. He introduced Barbara She concluded saying that ‘the play’s the thing’ and that Follett MP and thanked her for stepping in at the last minute buildings can either enable this engagement or not. following a Cabinet reshuffle where Ben Bradshaw replaced Andy Burnham as Culture Secretary.

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 Chair, Bonnie Greer Adam Kenwright how we design theatres to welcome Managing Director, aka audiences and provide the facilities Morag Myerscough Director, Studio Myerscough they need Leonie Wallace Head of Visitor Services, Wales Millennium Centre John Botteley Theatre Director, Grand Opera House, Belfast

Hosting Signifier and signified Morag Myerscough’s redesign of the wayfinding at the Barbican was all about making better use of the venue. New York, London (Paris, Munich) Session Chair Bonnie Greer reminded us that experiencing When the Barbican was first built the assumption was that theatre(s) begins in our heads: we move to buildings later on…. everybody was going to arrive in cars, there was no natural “I have been writing theatre since I was eight. The first time I entrance. So until the redesign, as an audience member you had walked into the theatre I was 21 years old.” no sense of arrival. There were no landmarks to meet people. The brutalism was looking sad. Organisationally, each department Adam Kenwright was just off a plane from New York, he pointed had put up posters and signage ad hoc and piecemeal. There out that in the West End we charge £3.50 for a programme: in was no overall cohesion. New York the playbill is given free; there is air conditioning and free iced water readily available. So Myerscough made an entrance… deployed motorway style signage, based on a need to know. She identified the building’s “I think we have an obligation to our theatre- key areas, such as the places where people move up and down going community, and particularly those people and created “signage that works with the brutalism”, designing whom we are trying to attract to become theatre large floor level signs with the use of silhouette and light, which incorporated and showed off the concrete. goers - to work much harder at making the theatre-going experience more pleasurable.” Giving voice – buildings which speak Adam Kenwright The Wales Millennium Centre, Leonie Wallace informed us, was the first new national cultural institution in 50 years. Inspired Kenwright wanted a real effort put into the whole theatre-going by Welsh traditions and the landscape it has a poem in Welsh experience: no booking / transaction fees; weekly focus groups. and English carved into its fabric. The building is designed Picking up on Follett’s earlier theme, he pointed out that 68% of “from the street to the seat” to make an emotional connection. all theatre goers in the West End are women. As the audience comes through the front door they enter into the concourse, and their eye is drawn to the ticket counter (the “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?” Adam Kenwright

Kenwright was unequivocal to the end. ”We need to make use of the extraordinary buildings we have.”

01212 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 longest in the world). In such an open, expansive and tranquil or toilets on the ground floor; a box office fit just for selling boxes; space, the challenge is to create intimacy. Wallace noted that dark, dingy and narrow bars with huge serving counters; the buildings drive behaviour. 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 but the centre has evolved an awful lot over In 2003 the theatre appointed architects, RHWL Arts Team to 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 to find solutions to those problems of working office block, behind the theatre, this produced a new signature within the original premise and design and the building facing the street adjacent to the existing theatre, with big 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 Public space are flooding in to have a cup of coffee during John Botteley is Theatre Manager of The Grand Opera House, the morning so that they can see the Matcham Belfast. Built by Matcham in 1895, by the 1960s it was derelict. auditorium. It is not one or the other it really is In the 1970s the Arts Council of Northern Ireland saved it. It was about both.” reopened in 1980, when the architect Robert McKinstry restored John Botteley it. Next to the most bombed hotel in Europe, there were no bars

Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 13 John E McGrath invited contributors to Chair, John E McGrath Artistic Director, National Theatre Wales speak about the relationship between Nicky & Lee Caulfield theatre architecture and the influence Save Waltham Forest Theatre Colin Blumenau theatres have on our lives Artistic Director, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Jenny Sealey MBE Artistic Director/CEO, Graeae Theatre Steve Tompkins Director, Haworth Tompkins

Influencing Inclusivity Colin Blumenau spoke with a very cogent contemporary vision about the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds. He had been John E McGrath introduced this session as all about responsible for restoring one of the oldest theatres in the influencing: how theatre people hopefully influence artists country built in 1819. A Regency period theatre, designed by to do extraordinary things; how architects influence theatre William Wilkins, Blumenau praised him for understanding that people to re-imagine what they can do and crucially how the three parts to a theatre: the auditorium, the performance audiences influence space and space influences audiences. space and what goes on behind, are all united and deliver an experience that is ‘inclusive rather than observational’. It is this Another part of the Waltham Forest: Young cultural ability to be inclusive that influences audiences. entrepreneurs Nicky and Lee Caulfield are 16-year-old twin boys from the Jenny Sealey felt that it was important that every single Waltham Forest Theatre campaign to save the only theatre member of staff from the cleaner to the chair of the board can in Waltham Forest under the slogan ‘One community one describe the experience of walking through the front doors. theatre’. They currently attend college in Walthamstow and It’s important to know where everything is because you might are studying business studies, performance studies, theatre have a blind audience member who wants a description technology and media studies. of the theatre they are about to enter. This was contrasted with a workshop in which she had participated. For the first 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.

“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

14014 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 exercise participants were asked to take their shoes off, “Now sadly under used and cripplingly and put their feet on the floor. Not everyone was wearing expensive to maintain the building is revealed shoes; not everyone could put their feet on the floor - and not as an exotic dinosaur, fossilised in a moment everyone had feet. So there were some assumptions being made. Sealey pointed out that disability is a very individual of history unable to adapt to changing tastes experience, but access and equal engagement is a collective and changing priorities, but because it fails experience. So how to bridge this apparent gap? to connect the gaps between civic ambition, architectural single-mindedness, theatrical Sealey then gave some positive examples of access and adaptability of human nature it is now iconic inclusion. She thought her biggest influence had been in her working relationship with Birmingham Rep, which for all the wrong reasons”. she described as her second home. Because it’s been a Steve Tompkins collaborative engagement – they go back all the time - the In another district of San Paolo across the city is the second attitude to access is simply can do. space - which Tompkins described as “unremarkable from the street and breaks nearly every rule in the theatre design guide The previous day, Sealey had got the keys to Graeae’s new and would never survive an Arts Council review”. building. 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 Access is not only about loops, ramps, disabled dozens of coffee bars. The foyer in the evening is mostly under 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 to be associated with Graeae (given the history tree growing through one wall, a roof that retracts to see of disabled people and their institutional the stars, a fireplace and scaffold seating structure on three treatment). CARE means creating artistic interconnecting levels. 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 Oscar and Oficina build theatres. In the evenings it acts as the 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 much praised and much photographed upon its completion, The architectural sincerity of this theatre but when Tompkins visited a generation later the building was is breathtaking. It’s done all the things that 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 Who designs the theatre? map of its neighbourhood at grassroots In the discussion Andrew Todd, architect of the CQS space level, brought cultural focus and local at the Old Vic, reiterated that all of these examples arise only from a relationship of a certain ethical and emotional maturity pride to a diverse working class community between the designer and client - and that relationship can only and established a profile far beyond San work when the client brings a lot to the table, is demanding and Paolo because it is an authentic, rigourous also extremely wise in the way that they run their institution. theatre space producing extraordinary life enhancing work.” Architect Mark Foley has been involved with the designing many types of theatre spaces. For him, underpinning the many Steve Tompkins approaches to designing good theatre spaces, was the craft For Tompkins’ studio it’s one of the most influential buildings of the architect involved. as much for its ethical implications as for its aesthetic language. All of their theatre projects concentrate on the idea Ben Todd had another view on the ideas of specialist craft, of a more active engagement between the theatre, the city and and space… the community. “I wanted to ask all the expertise in this room - how “I think to some extent we need to fall in love far can we stretch the kind of Steve (Tompkins) with each other and that means trusting each approach where you don’t just take a building and other; being vulnerable to stupid ideas; being start to adapt it, you literally just take a space and shot down in flames. I think it means spending start to work? The stuff that Jenny (Sealey) was enough time with each other. It means learning talking about, can we actually have community what each other’s particular dialect… all build a theatre - don’t consult them on it, just invite of this, I think, can only happen (like any them to build it? Come along in your wheelchair relationship) given enough time and space and and if that bar’s too high tell the guy to chop 6 freedom to discover what the relationship is inches off the bottom of it. How far can we really going to be”. seriously push these boundaries?” Steve Tompkins Dr Ben Todd,

01616 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Audience design principles

The following principles emerged during the course of reflect audiences different sizes, eye levels, and heights to the day and are drawn directly from the proceedings. appreciate what relationships the audience will have to the stage. They are intended to be an aide memoire, a potential set Aim to accommodate everyone. Audiences may come in groups of references to guide further action and complement the of similar and different ages, disabilities, and experiences of design principles from the Trust’s Conferences in 2007 being a theatre audience. Consider how the auditorium will and 2008. deliver a sense of respect and inclusion for everyone and enable those responsible for managing the space to achieve this.

Transformation Consultation

Audiences are not add-ons in the design process. They are What you call your process matters. Is it consultation, not simply spectators or consumers. What quality of theatre engagement, partnership, collaboration or something else? experience will audiences have? Understanding that theatre is Above all it is a conversation, often ongoing, which involves and a process of two-way communication is essential to designing responds to existing and potential audiences and is about a successful auditorium. creating the spaces they want to love.

An intimate-feeling auditorium helps to energise the space, but Think carefully about how you want to engage with users, the scale, and the comfort and number of seats will not managing expectations of audiences involvement and being necessarily be the main factors in achieving this. The closer clear with them about potential outcomes. Consider the audience members are to the stage and their capacity to need for humility over professional prowess. Try not to allow sense each other are both important in focusing the energy in the requirements of the capital project management to derail the space. the conversation.

Ambiance builds anticipation and helps the audience to locate Factor in enough time in the design process to build a developed themselves in the space ready for the performance. This can understanding of the subtle relationship between a theatre’s be enhanced with careful consideration of decoration, texture, purpose and its audiences. colour, acoustics, sight-lines and other factors in the spatial and interior design of the auditorium. Accept anger or apparent negativity towards change and use it as a pretext to continue and develop the conversation. Instil a sense of expectation. The making and remaking of the “contract” between the audience and the actors is part of the Enable audiences to discover the theatre and they will become experience of returning again and again to the same theatre. advocates. Explain and guide people through designs, sites and Being able to reconfigure the auditorium to accommodate theatres, help them to understand the language. Involve theatre production requirements and new seating layouts introduces the staff in the process as they should be able to describe the unexpected and can make it feel as if it is a newly ‘found’ space. theatre to audiences.

Carefully consider the aesthetic of the auditorium in relation to Write your consultation process into your design brief and how it will be used and viewed. Design neutrality doesn’t exist. construction contracts. If the local authority, architect and Even a plain Black Box auditorium has a personality which tells contractor are not contractually signed up to consulting it will an audience what to feel. The auditorium also provides the be much harder to introduce further down the line. creative production team with a canvas within which it paints the performance. Some may be blank, as in the Black Box, others will Enable young people to play a meaningful part in the come with their own decoration which needs to be worked in. consultation process. Identify very early on in tender documents, especially in Building for Schools projects, that the Design in the audience using the tools of the set designer supplier must be prepared to work with young people. Timing is including 1:25 scale models and CAD modelling techniques to crucial to be able to write this into contracts.

Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 17 Value young people’s ideas and give them access to big building, its story in physical space, its history, its design and decisions. Find young people who are genuinely interested, layout, its ambience and intimacy, its present and its future connect them to the right people and listen directly to their possibilities, and how these are communicated to audiences. views. Ensure they can see specific and concrete consequences. Create depth of engagement: it’s better to Are the ancillary spaces only ancillary? See your theatre in its do something small and significant, than many things that totality. The design, usability, and design aesthetic of restaurants, have no impact. Support them and be prepared to change bars, lounges, VIP areas, event spaces, outside areas, wifi points, your behaviour to accommodate their needs. Put in a and education spaces all help to develop the personality of the programme of support. theatre. Creating great spaces where social interactions can take place helps to drive revenue streams, and enrich the conversations Design and re-design front of house facilities to cater for with your audiences. They are part of the story you tell. everyone. Train staff to anticipate and respond to customer needs, and feed customers views back into the way the building Influencing is used and can be improved. Successful theatres are part of a city and part of community, Hosting and should be viewed as ‘social capital’. Understand what makes a theatre loved by the people that use and work in it, The audience’s experience starts with the journey to the the memories a theatre holds, why these are important, and theatre. The experience of the theatre starts well before ar- build on them. Theatres are about communities as well as riving at the venue: booking tickets, possibly arranging care bricks and mortar. for children, and travelling. The theatre has to be prepared. Can audiences easily locate the theatre, intuitively find the Encourage and support young advocates. Young people want to entrance, then know where to go to find facilities. Can they sit make a difference to the community and other young people’s down? Will they have places to change and cloakrooms? Will lives. Listen to their passion, activism, and entrepreneurship. your theatre make them feel at ease? Theatre buildings have the capacity to drive the behaviour of It should be straight forward to describe the route from the audiences. The challenge is to make a space feel owned by its front door to the auditorium. It’s important to understand audiences: offering artistic risk, excitement, anticipation, how visitors might experience the building. Is there a sense subversion, and the unexpectedly expected; whilst enabling of arrival? Way-finding and signage should be thought about confidence, respect, and emotional security. during the design stage, potentially reflected as part of the architecture, not laid on afterwards. Make the theatre inclusive and accessible. In a theatre access and human engagement should be an equal and collective Incorporate the senses in foyer design. Visitors can be led experience; creating artistic rigorous engagement, or CARE. instinctively to areas by the smell of coffee, the sound of per- formances, or the use of light. Existing constraints can lead to creativity if the artistic influence is clear, particularly in the process of designing and In new theatres go beyond the minimum requirements for building a theatre. Create artistic narratives which illustrate facilities. For example, work out how many toilets you’ll need and incorporate contemporary connections that audiences can for those using them in the 20 minute interval without queues make with historic buildings. forming. Also remember that groups of disabled people with varying individual needs go to the theatre together. A theatre’s influence can be measured by a three circle Venn diagram. Each of the circles represents the artist, the architect Explore ways to tell people on the outside what’s going on in and the audience; the greater the commonality of interests, the inside. Websites, backstage tours, and special events all the greater their cross over. Strong relationships between the help audiences to engage with every aspect of your building, three are the key to a successful, influential theatre. Stay before and during their visits. Consider the narrative of the focused on the dymanic exchange throughout.

01818 Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 Attenders

Katy Alexander Charcoalblue Ltd Mark Foley Burrell Foley Fischer Morag Myerscough Studio Myerscough John Allen Northern Light Rt Hon Barbara Follet MP Minister for Culture, Peter Angier Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants Creative Industries & Tourism John Nicholls Arts Quarter LLP Cany Ash Ash Sakula Tim Foster Tim Foster Architects Rachel Nicholson Rose Bruford College Deborah Aydon Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse Paul Franklin Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants Caroline Noteboom Theateradvies BV Dominic Fraser The Old Vic Matthew Baker Tim Foster Architects Rose Freeman The Theatres Trust Rory Olcayto The Architects’ Journal Chris Baldwin ACT Consultant Services Jason Osterman Theatre Projects Consultants Steve Ball Birmingham Repertory Theatre Allegra Galvin Cambridge University Gavin Owen Charcoalblue Ltd Lalayn Baluch The Stage Mrs Gee Mark Owen Buro Happold Ltd Andrew Barker Gavin Green Charcoalblue Ltd Darren Barker Great Yarmouth Borough Council Bonnie Greer Tom Piper Royal Shakespeare Company Jason Barnes The Theatres Trust Matthew Pitman Martin Professional Daniel Bates York Theatre Royal Simon Harper Royal Shakespeare Company Mark Price The Theatres Trust David Beidas New Stages Ltd Marie Hartley Great Yarmouth Borough Council Barry Pritchard Arts Team @ RHWL David Benedict Conference 09 Chair Martin Hawthorn Hawthorns Ken Bennett-Hunter Andy Hayles Charcoalblue Ltd Juliet Quintero LCE Andrzej Blonski Architects Petrus Bertschinger Conference 09 Production Luke Haywood Rose Bruford College Peter Bingham Central School of Speech & Drama Nick Helm Octagon Theatre, Bolton Scott Ramsay Harlow Playhouse Fran Birch The Theatres Trust Duncan Hendry His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen Emma Rice Kneehigh Theatre John Bishop Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants Roger Hennigan White Light Ltd Chris Ricketts Sherman Cymru James Blackman Lyric Hammersmith Vikki Heywood Royal Shakespeare Company Luke Robson Central School of Speech & Drama Andrzej Blonski LCE Andrzej Blonski Architects Judith Hibberd Arts Council England Tim Ronalds Tim Foster Architects Colin Blumenau Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Nigel Hinds Elliott Rose Unicorn Theatre David Blyth Stephen Hing Drivers Jonas Geoffrey Rowe Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham Rick Bond The Complete Works Chris Honer Manchester Library Theatre Peter Ruthven Hall Theatreplan LLP John Botteley Grand Opera House, Belfast Peter Hooper University College Falmouth Mike Bradford Birmingham Hippodrome Arnot Hughes Lawray Architects Claire Saddleton See a Voice Richard Brett Theatreplan LLP Jeff Hyatt Delfont Mackintosh Theatres Mhora Samuel The Theatres Trust Matt Britton Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants Emma Savage Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants Richard Bunn Arup Acoustics Tony Jay Wales Millennium Centre Nikki Scott Stage Technologies Selene Burn Birmingham Repertory Theatre Innes Johnston Max Fordham LLP Jenny Sealey MBE Graeae Theatre Liz Bury AMPC Ltd Stephen Jolly Buro Happold Ltd Christina Seilern Studio Seilern Architects LLP Paul Jozefowski NT Future Caroline Sharman New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth Olivia Campbell Stadia and Auditoria Magazine David Jubb Gillian Shaw Scottish Arts Council Kate Carmichael The Theatres Trust Andy Shewan Unicorn Theatre Jill Caulfield Adam Kenwright aka Ruth Smallshaw Theatre Projects Consultants Lee CaulfieldSave Waltham Forest Theatre Noel Kirby John O’Neill & Partners Alistair Smith The Stage Nicky Caulfield Save Waltham Forest Theatre Ian Knowles Arup Acoustics Ian Smith King Shaw Associates Simon Chaplin Cheetham’s School of Music Roger Spence Lesley Chenery Octagon Theatre, Bolton Pauleen Lane CBE The Theatres Trust Mick Spratt Wigwam Acoustics Ltd Colin Chester Ambassador Theatre Group John Langley National Theatre Judith Strong Arts & Architecture Projects David Clark Max Fordham LLP May Lee Hawthorns Graham Sykes John Clark Acuity Management Solutions Allan Leiper John O’Neill & Partners Wil Cleary The Circus Space Jane Lemon Ambassador Theatre Group Flip Tanner Royal Shakespeare Company Adam Coleman Lyric Hammersmith Mark Lewis Levitt Bernstein David Taylor Arup Paul Connolly The Theatres Trust Graham Lister David Taylor Sheppard Robson Isaac Conroy Rose Bruford College Matt Little Real Ideas Organisation CIC David Thacker Octagon Theatre, Bolton Paul Covell Paul Covell Consultants Robert Longthorne Liverpool Everyman and James Thomas Charcoalblue Ltd Ted Craig Playhouse Pat Thomas OBE The Theatres Trust Paul Crosbie Charcoalblue Ltd Brian Loudon Festival City Theatres Trust Neil Thomson Grand Theatre, Blackpool Colin Cuthbert Northern Light Andrew Todd Andrew Todd Studios Charles MacKeith Research Design Dr Ben Todd Arcola Theatre Chris Daniel Charcoalblue Ltd Barbara Matthews Arts Council England Steve Tompkins Haworth Tompkins Roxy Daniells Sheffield Theatres Trust Gillian McCutcheon Robin Townley DanceEast Paul Davies Suzanne McDougall The Theatres Trust Ben Twist The Theatres Trust Richard De Boise Tim Foster Architects Alex McGowan Unicorn Theatre Andrew Decarteret Burrell Foley Fischer John E McGrath National Theatre Wales Leonie Wallace Wales Millennium Centre Rob Dickins CBE The Theatres Trust Keith McLaren Carr & Angier Theatre Consultants Nicola Walls Page/Park Architects Andrew Dickson The Guardian Jonathan Meth Conference 09 Reporter Trevor Watson Davis Coffer Lyons Russell Duly Live Nation (Venues) UK Ltd Stephen Midlane Polka Theatre Mark White ETC Christopher Durham The Point, Eastleigh Russell Miller Ambassador Theatre Group Andrew Wilie Buro Happold Ltd Anne Minors AMPC Ltd Keith Williams Keith Williams Architects Ruth Eastwood Leicester Theatre Trust Alison Minto Arts Council England Caz Williamson Conference 09 Consultant Barbara EiflerStage Management Association Martin Moore Edmund Wilson Tim Foster Architects Simon Erridge Bennetts Associates James Morse Light and Design Associates Liz Wilson Oldham Coliseum Theatre Chris Moxon Unicorn Theatre Peter Wilson Royal Shakespeare Company Alistair Fair Alan Baxter & Associates Joan Moynihan Sandy Wright Wright & Wright Architects Andrew Filmer Aberystwyth University John Muir Sonya Flynn Charcoalblue Ltd John Murphy Murphy Design John Young Ambassador Theatre Group

Conference 09 Report Experiencing Theatres 9 June 2009 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