http://plasa.me/umlwm September 2019
$10.00
Khalid The Free Spirit World Tour
ALSO:
Carrie Underwood: The Cry Pretty 360 Tour
Memphis’ Crosstown Theater
Show Technology Comes of Age
Sound for Broadway’s New Oklahoma!
Martin by Harman MAC Allure Profile
Obsidian Control Systems’ NX 2 Console
Copyright Lighting &Sound America September 2019 complete issue: http://plasa.me/umlwm ARCHITECTURE Copyright Lighting &Sound America September 2019 complete issue: http://plasa.me/umlwm
On the Concou rse
62 • September 2019 • Lighting &Sound America
A flexible theatre thrives in the heart of a stunningly reimagined vertical urban village
By: David Barbour
he Crosstown Theater, in Memphis, Tennessee is part of the 1.5-million-sq.-ft. Crosstown Concourse, a ten-story building originally built in 1927 as a Sears distribution center, which has been reimagined as a “vertical urban village.” Long abandoned, Tit was, only a few years ago, a glaring example of urban blight; now it buzzes with activity. As a bonus, the project has earned LEED Platinum status. The building is home to the vibrant organization Crosstown Arts, original - ly founded to realize the Crosstown Concourse project. Co-founders Christopher Miner and Todd Richardson began working with con - sultants on a feasibility study for the renovation even as Crosstown Arts began presenting exhibitions, con - certs, lectures, dinners, and parties. The founders drew on support from the community as various businesses and organizations signed on as ten - ants. The renovation came in at $200 million. “The retail portion of the Sears building closed in 1983 and the ware - house in 1993,” Richardson says, noting that with 1.5 million sq. ft. located a mile and a half from the city’s downtown, it was hardly a prime piece of real estate. The devel -
opment team was assembled in n o m r
2010. However, Richardson notes, a H
e i
“Instead of taking a traditional devel - m a J
:
opment approach, we came up with o t o h
the idea of a vertical urban village, P
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The theatre accommodates 600 patrons standing, 425 in theatre-style rows, and 250 in banquet-style seating.
with retail, a school, offices, and residences, which would Today, Crosstown Arts is one tenant among many. be a catalyst for bringing people back to the neighbor - Jazmin Miller, director of Crosstown Theater, says that hood; the idea was to have people there all the time, as Crosstown Arts takes advantage of Crosstown opposed to an office park that would be occupied from Concourse’s amenities including the ability to offer resi - nine to five. We had wonderful partners that were interest - dencies to individual artists. She adds, “We value conver - ed, including healthcare organizations like St. Jude’s and sation, so we have a café and a bar. We have a shared art- Methodist Healthcare. We have a new high school in the making facility. It’s like an art gym: You pay a monthly building as well as Teach for America. Before we closed membership and you can use our shops; you might not be financing, we were 95% leased.” able to own a CNC router, but you can come to us.” Interestingly, Richardson says the development team Crosstown Theatre, part of Crosstown Arts and located took inspiration from other, similar projects. “This is one of in an adjacent building, currently hosts a lively mix of ten buildings that Sears constructed in the early 1920s,” films, concerts, and, among other things, small opera he notes. “Two redevelopments were really important for productions and even TED Talks. Also, Miller says, the us: One is Midtown Exchange in Minneapolis, which is theatre “hosts private events; our high school tenants can also a mixed-use development with office and residential do their musicals there. Other tenants, like Methodist spaces. Another is Ponce City Market in Atlanta.” Healthcare, can have a place for meetings.” Also, Richardson says, “When the building closed, the “It really is one of the most amazing adaptive reuses,” neighborhood fell off the radar. We knew that renovating says the acoustician C. Russell Todd, of the firm n
the building wasn’t enough; people needed to see the Akustiks. “And not just because of the scale and the o m r a
neighborhood. Crosstown Arts started out in empty store - way it came about. Todd Richardson is a visionary in H
e i m
front spaces across the street, presenting hundreds of bringing it together and building it from the ground up.” a J
: s
exhibitions, concerts, and block parties to draw people Commenting on the vertical urban village concept, he o t o h
here.” adds, “Normally, the community is a commercial area, P
64 • September 2019 • Lighting &Sound America with a residential spread around it. Imagine it being built Gerd Wuestemann, former executive director of Acadiana vertically in a building. You’ve got commerce down Center for the Arts (now CEO of Scottsdale Arts, in below, a high school, a residential area, and hotels with Arizona) acted as an adviser for the Crosstown project. suites for guest artists. Crosstown Arts has their offices Features of the theatre include a sprung wood floor there. There’s also a radio station and our theatre.” stage, modular open floor, and retractable seating. The per - The Crosstown Concourse project required the services formance space can transform completely from an open of three architectural firms: Looney Ricks Kiss, Spatial room with 5,000 sq. ft. of flat floor space to proscenium, Affairs Bureau, and DIALOG. The first two were involved thrust, black box, or theatre-in-the-round configurations, in with Crosstown Theater, as were Akustiks and theatre con - a few hours. It accommodates 600 standing, 425 in the - sultants Theatre Projects. The theatre is not part of the ren - atre-style rows, and 250 in banquet-style seating. ovated Sears building; it is located in a new structure in an A key to the room’s flexibility is the retractable seating adjacent courtyard. “It’s part of the campus absolutely,” on the orchestra level, height-adjustable seating platforms says David H. Rosenburg, the managing principal at by NIVOflex (distributed in the US by Steeldeck), with fixed Theatre Projects. “But there would have been no way to seats supplied by Jezet and portable audience chairs by make the theatre’s volume work in the existing building.” Wenger. Aaron Wong, a senior consultant with Theatre He adds that a back-of-house connection links the theatre Projects, says, “Trying to cram such a varied program into with Crosstown Concourse. a single small-type space” was one of the signal chal - Rosenburg also notes that Crosstown Arts wanted a lenges. “The room has to do many different things, and to venue that could be used by the entire community, hence, serve many different users. We pushed the seat count as the black-box format: “We worked with them to find ways high as we could while maintaining the integrity of the to accommodate the biggest number of people seating- room, also making sure it also supports the various equip - wise.” ment that needed to be in it.” In terms of lighting, Andrew Hagan, a senior consultant The theatre with Theatre Projects, notes that Crosstown opted for a full The theatre is laid out in the courtyard format. Rosenburg LED system, as many are now doing. He worked with the notes that it is modeled on the Acadiana Center for the company to provide the lighting infrastructure and to speci -
The seating is retractable, thanks to platforms supplied by The courtyard format allows the space to be used for a variety of NIVOflex. performances and community events.
Arts, in Lafayette, Louisiana—another Theatre fy the gear package, which has been supplied by Projects/Akustiks building—that is the adaptive reuse of a Mainstage Theatrical Supply; it includes ETC Source Four former bank. Like Crosstown, the space was designed to LEDs, ETC ColorSource CYCs, and Chroma-Q Color Force accommodate acoustic and electronic music, film, spo - strip lights, with control via an ETC Ion console. The the - ken-word presentations, dance, drama, and meetings. atre rents automated gear on an as-needed basis. The
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counterweight rigging system, installed by iWeiss, consists and without losing any of the volume. of 20 line sets from the company’s Align system. “The whole project was a study in contrasts,” Butler continues. “You have this big, beautiful space that is, A crafted acoustical solution essentially, an empty cube—cool and dark and perfect. I Although Akustiks worked closely with Spatial Affairs on wanted to balance it with something that’s warm, that’s unexpected, that’s very dynamic and has this intimacy and human scale to it, so that you instantly recognize that it’s not made in a highly mechanical way.” The sculpture is made of poplar, a type of wood that is abundant in the region, Butler notes. The wood was processed into blocks that were 2" x 8" x 24", cut to the shapes of his original drawings, and assembled into 1'-tall strips. They are attached to wood anchors installed in the theatre’s walls. Echoing Todd’s comment, Butler says, “They look like curtains with folds.” However, he adds, “The read of the panels shifts, depending on your proximi - ty to them. A broad surface like this might read like cur - tains but, up close, it’s clearly wood, and heavy and not fabric.” The undulations, he says, provide “a visual analo - gy to what the sound is actually doing.” Todd compares the sculpture to a QRD diffuser, which typically consists of wells of different depths, causing a mixture of phase shifts that diffuse reflected sound.
The sculptor Ben Butler, working with Akustiks, created the art - fully designed acoustical diffusion.
the theatre’s interior design, Todd also notes, “Crosstown is really hands-on in terms of having local people make contributions, too. Todd said, ‘I would really love to inte - grate something into the room that is specifically of Memphis.’ He brought in an artist, Ben Butler; he’s a fan - tastic guy and a fantastic wood sculptor. We started talk - ing, kicking ideas around together—and I said, ‘We could create the acoustical diffusions with Ben’.” As a result, Todd says, “What you see on the walls is a wood sculpture that Ben developed. I gave him acoustic parameters, the depth of articulation, and the general shaping of the surface elements. He created a kind of sculpted landscape that looks almost like a topographical map. Because we wanted vertical elements to spread sound laterally, the sculpture almost looks like curtains.” The view from the stage. The theatre opted for an all-LED light - Butler, discussing the project in a Crosstown Arts video, ing rig, including gear from ETC and Chroma-Q. says the sculpture “had to serve two purposes. We’re cov - ering the entire interior of the theatre with a wall treatment that sets the tone of the space and is really the first thing In addition, the auditorium has adjustable acoustics you notice when you come in. The other is the acoustics thanks to the installation of iWeiss’ SoundControl Stacker of the space.” The project’s brief, he adds, was “an System. This is an acoustic banner that can be supplied a uneven, undulating surface that is dense enough to reflect single panel over its full width. “The benefit of this system sound instead of absorbing it, but the surface is uneven is that the banners can be wider,” says Russ Dusek, proj - with just the right amount of variation so that when sound ect manager at iWeiss’ Chicago office. “With a rollup ban - hits it, it is diffused, evenly and randomly, through the ner, you are limited by the size of the tube. The stacking space, so there’s no echo of strange ricocheting of sound, banners can be basically any width you want, provided
66 • September 2019 • Lighting &Sound America In addition to the lobby, above, the theatre also has a green room, two dressing rooms, two storage spaces, and a loading dock.
you have a strong-enough motor. There are six banner Crestron DM (Digital Media) platforms to deliver what the units in the theatre, with encoders on the banners. client needed. “Flexibility was really one of the main Acousticians figure out different types of coverage in terms things,” he adds. “They didn’t want to be pigeonholed or of percentage, from 0 – 100%. Working with them, we set directed in only one way. The breadth of programming in cues over the course of a day, using different types of per - the space is so broad, from live performances of small formers—soloists, rock bands—to tune the room. This bands to rap and marching bands and opera. There’s real - gave them presets for whatever they need.” ly no limitation on the type of show that might go in there. The location of the building posed other challenges for Programming requirements also include cinema, so we put Akustiks. Todd notes that the loading dock for Crosstown in BluRay and Crestron DM for video distribution and a Concourse is adjacent to the theatre: “That means Fedex Barco DP4K19B 4K projector with DCP capabilities.” deliveries, trash, and everything else serving a million- The loudspeaker rig consists of d&b audiotechnik gear. square-foot building. The building is a concrete box and “They’ve got E8 [two-way compact coaxial units] and Vi7P, we added an acoustic isolation joint between the loading as fixed position mains, E12s as portable effects/monitor dock and the theatre. Also, there is air traffic over the site, speakers, and E5s [point sources] for portable front fills. To so there is a heavy concrete roof. We’re down to the NC20 round out the low end they have a pair of Bi6 subs, which level of isolation,” which helps to guarantee that live can be located in several positions as programming dic - acoustic music gets the best possible hearing. The air tates (split left/right, center-arrayed). We went with d&b delivery system comes in from above, with air returned gear because we needed something that could give them through the theatre’s arbor pit; the theatre is also seismi - the power they need while also being flexible and not mas - cally restrained, because Memphis sits on a seismic fault. sive—something that can handle amplified speech as well n o as a brass band or amplified music. It’s not just about raw m r a
H Audio/video infrastructure power in this space; they just did that TED Talk recently, e i m
a Michael T. Umile, a consultant with Akustiks, notes that the for example. One of the big design goals was intimacy— J
: s
o audio and video infrastructure was designed with flexibility getting a connection with musicians in the space. We did t o h
P and ease of use in mind, using the QSC Q-SYS and more of a distributed system—a zoned left-center-right
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An aerial view of Crosstown Commons, the 1.5-million sq. ft. former Sears distribution center that has been reimagined as a vertical urban village.
configuration—that allows them to focus sound in the functions as much as we could. The dimmer room, projec - space.” For films, he adds, “The audio comes out of the tion, and audio racks are all in the central back area. We Barco projector and GDC Technology Integrated Media also collaborated with Theatre Projects on the midstage Block; it is multichannel AES that goes directly into a Q- traveler, which we’re using as a system to adjust the SYS I/O frame; after that, they have a portable LCR sys - aspect ratio of the film screen. We can do up to a full 2:35 tem for cinema, which can be placed behind the micro- ratio. The screen was supplied by Strong MDI, but they perforated projection screen along with distributed plug also have a scrim that they have used for projection.” boxes for surround sound.” Indeed, the theatre functions as an art cinema, showing The theatre is equipped with two Yamaha digital mixers: two or three indie and/or classic films a week. a QL5 at the front of house and a CL1 located upstage; these were chosen in part, Umile says, because “lots of Ancillary spaces people are familiar with them and they don’t have any Rosenburg notes that the theatre also has a green room, huge barriers to entry. They’re boards that a lot of people two dressing rooms, two storage spaces, and a loading can walk up to and start mixing.” dock; the company’s administrative offices are located in Also, Umile notes, “The Crestron system has a tie to the Crosstown Concourse. Everyone interviewed for the piece fire alarm system. Per fire code, if an alarm is going off, the notes that budget was an issue and that some amenities sound system must be muted. When the fire alarm trig - included in the original plan—such as a rehearsal room— gers, the amplifiers mute while the control system flashes were sacrificed, with due regret. Also, Rosenburg says, e s
a warning.” Crestron also handles lobby feeds for audio because Crosstown Arts is still relatively new, “there was a r u o c
and video, and feeds to the dressing rooms. The show lot of relying on us and Gerd to fill in the gaps. They could - n o C
communications system is by Clear-Com. “There are page n’t fall back on saying, ‘This is how we are doing it now.’ n w o t s
stations built-in for the green room, dressing rooms, or There’s nothing better than a really informed user. They s o r C
lobby; they are built into the Q-SYS network, which fires a were open and savvy, but they didn’t always know the f o
y
command to route the audio.” Listen Technologies sup - question. In the end, we got there.” Todd adds, “If the s e t r u
plied an assistive listening system. Sears building is the revived patient, this building is the lit - o C
: o Umile adds, “We worked to make sure that the users tle heart that has been transplanted in to bring life, nestled t o h can understand everything. We also tried to centralize in the corner of Crosstown Concourse.” P
68 • September 2019 • Lighting &Sound America