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 ............... 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, The Old Vic 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 London in June 2009 negotiate the space. 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 the place of audiences within not think that that’s going to make or break