| B.3.b
Configurations. Our
facilities in Beegle Hall, now include the scene shop, tool room, welding bay,
materials storage areas, design studio, costume storage, and office space for
the Technical Director. Our lighting matainance and
storage room is located backstage in the Bach Theatre. Other
storage needs, including the properties inventory, is accommodated in the HR Building
on West Nickerson Street. The
1986 renovation of McKinley Auditorium was the cause of major celebration for
the arts on campus. Theatre and music, of course,
received a revitalized performance space, and care was taken to integrate the
visual arts, graphically illustrating the inseparability and integrative nature
of the arts. Perhaps nothing can demonstrate the celebratory
enthusiasm of the time better than the description of the renovation which appeared
in the printed program for the dedication service. It
still reflects the important connectedness of our performance facility: McKinley
has always been a place of action and interaction—a people place,
Throughout the design and remodeling process, particular care has been
taken to insure the facility be true to that heritage. The
ultimate goal has been to restore the building’s pride and allow it to function
as the heart of campus communal activity. The
success of this renovation ideal is evident in the surrounding spaces. The
human interaction theme is immediately apparent in the enlarged and airy lobby.
A wonderfully sculptural space, this is a place for people to mingle; a
place offering the delight of moving “around” and “through”
and “up” to the auditorium. Open
stairways, ticketing, coat-check and conversation areas combine to orient
the space to human interaction. And dominating all
else, in a controlled explosion of color, hangs a master weaving that expresses
the sheer joy of creativity. In
the Bach Theatre for the Performing Arts, an open, flexible-configuration platform
thrusts into the audience area. The 251-seat amphitheater
embraces it, daringly creating “ritual space” in a room designed
for immediate audience and performer involvement. As
you enter, the eye is irresistibly drawn to the platform and then to the arc of
seats. The combined effect invites participation in
the event to come. The colors are purposely muted
to focus the line of contact to and from the platform.
The intimate proximity of artist and audience greatly enhances the musical
and theatrical experience. Flexibility
is a key requirement in a multiple-use campus theatre. Insuring
this are a hydraulically-operated forestage, movable stage walls, a computer controlled
digital lighting system and a highly sophisticated sound, television and communications
network. More than a mile of wirework is hidden in
these walls! Downstairs,
the Dorothy Boyd Kreider Gallery underlines the university’s conviction
that art and performance are inseparable. The Kreider
gallery is a distinctive showplace for student and faculty visual art presentations.
New installations here are coordinated with the openings of major performance
events in the building. Adjoining
the gallery is the Studio Theatre, an adaptable “black box” production
space. Other uses include rehearsals, acting, movement
and directing classes,
and exhibit space for conferences sponsored by the university.
A fully-equipped, adjacent kitchen facilitates receptions that often accompany
recitals and plays. The
Performance Laboratories, a cluster of rooms not ordinarily accessible to the
public, include the Costume Construction Laboratory, the Make-up Laboratory, men’s
and women’s Dressing Rooms (with lavatories and showers), and the Green
Room, a performer/student lounge. The labs provide
vital support for the two performance areas. Completing
the design of the building for interactive learning are four faculty offices and
a conference room. McKinley
Hall’s renovation provides Seattle
Pacific with its first space specifically designed for artistic performance.
In it our campus artists enjoy an environment which challenges them
to explore and share their talents, to perfect technique and presentation
and to render unto God the gifts He has
loaned to them. The
florid description above reveals the manner in which the remodeling was designed
to express—through architecture—a philosophy of the social nature
of theatre. Our performance space is sculptural, not
painterly, emphasizing the three-dimensional qualities of the performer.
Similarly, our audience space is sculptural, leading the audience member
to share with others. We are one of the fortunate
few theatre companies have the opportunity to present such a totally integrated
experience to their audiences. And though many of
the individuals who attend our productions are not cognoscente of the effects
being worked on them—that’s one of the goals of theatre production
isn’t it?—most will remark on how much they enjoy coming to the building.
The
weaving by Art Professor Larry Metcalf which hangs in the theatre lobby is a companion
piece to the tapestry displayed in the Miller
Science Learning
Center, now Otto M. Miller
Hall That piece seeks to express the control and precision
of the sciences. Ours, relating directly to the arts,
is entitled “Sunrise/Sunset,” and seeks to suggest
through its shapes and colors that a sunset exists inside every sunrise.
My end is in my beginning. Every creative act
has a concept, execution and product which are all of one piece; no artistic product
without the initial creative vision. Its textures
are loose and at once tightly woven, the central experience open and colorful,
but against a background of ordered activity. It is
bold, striking, nearly overwhelming in its assault on the senses.
It elicits strong responses, almost demanding to be touched, absorbed.
As
with all artistic artifacts, plays included, you are not encumbered with the obligation
to like the tapestry, but only to attempt to understand it and
let it be what it is intended to be. And to celebrate
its addition to the world. Next
Section: B4a:
Production Patterns | 
