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“Side boxes are typically only in high-end PACs, and originally
we had a balcony that was going to horseshoe around,” Garven
says. “When you stand on stage and look up, you can be in any
opera house in the world.”
Another point Kovacs is proud of is how wheelchair accessible
the new theatre is. There are now 18 spaces for wheel chairs, 12
just 40 feet from the stage.
The way they got more space in the same space proved to
be under their nose—or more specifically, under their feet. They
went down, creating a lower portion that would be the lobby, and
thus created more room in the rear to accommodate more seats.
“We elevated the rear seating area enough to accommodate the
plan, but not so much that patrons would be banging their head
on the ceiling – again, this is where ‘inches’ came in! And we took
every one we could.” To accommodate this plan, the control
booth was placed under some seats much closer to the stage.
he was able to alert the team that an initial scheme was not going
to work well sound-wise. Duggar’s input on exactly how the seats
were divided and how the floors were raked allowed him to adjust
the acoustic throw patterns of the room. “It’s tailored to different
areas of the room so that the space always feels filled up with
people. And when they just want to use the front part of the seating
area, they can dim down the theatre sound-wise to the point
that it’s as if it’s a theatre with half as many seats.”
Duggar says that they talked early on with TSG about what
speaker system would be put in, how it should be a line array, and
where it should go. “On all the projects we do, we don’t design
the work, but we influence it. We call it ‘proper adult supervision,’”
he jokes.
The line arrays were flown, but in a manner so that they
wouldn’t be in the way for more intimate performances. They
have a speaker cluster that hangs above the stage so that it’s
Edward Duggar
Bil Kovacs
A new fly tower for the South Florida
Community College PAC was built, giving
them a new trim height capable of
supporting bigger touring musicals.
Side boxes give the PAC a classic opera-house feel.
The “Candy”
The theatre includes a video monitoring system where those
in the greenroom or in the dressing rooms can see what is happening
on stage. There’s two Christie LX1000 with optional long
throw LNS TO3 lenses in the theatre.
For their audio needs the team chose a Yamaha PM-5D board
running digitally into a Meyer Sound Galileo 616 Digital Processor.
There are 10 Meyer MICA line array speaker cabinets, plus four
700-HP subwoofers under the apron, and another five Meyer UP
Junior UltraCompact VariO loudspeakers on the front apron for
good measure.
But don’t look for any monitor gear, as there is none, and it’s
not an oversight. “My perception is since we don’t have a person
on staff to run monitors, when we need them, it’s better to rent
them and the person to run them,” says Kovacs
Kovacs says the acoustician Edward Duggar, of Edward Duggar
and Associates, was a major component of the project’s ultimate
success. Duggar was involved from the very beginning, and says
mostly out of site when not in use, but can be brought down easily
when needed.
In the end, for Duggar, the hall sounds like he thought it would.
“Acoustically it serves well for the events and shows that come
through. There’s enough variability that it can handle amplified
events, too. It’s a very performer-friendly room. It’s always nice to
bring another theatre into the world.”
They have an ETC Eos lighting board driving an impressive collection
of lights. “We have six new Mac 700 Profile moving heads,
and six Mac TW1 wash fixtures, which I would recommend,” says
Kovacs. An eight-hour training session on the new lighting console
helped him over a major learning curve, and he enjoys that
it’s so much friendlier when working moving lights.
An embarrassment of riches?
“Somebody used the phrase, ‘kid in a candy store,’ but it’s
bittersweet,” Kovac says, adding that it was hard to go from all
analog sound to all digital, and he did so with a tinge of regret,
as to his ears analog sounds better. “But now that I’ve learned the
PM-5D it is amazing.”
For the theatre’s opening pianist/singer Paul Sauk performed
and 1,500 special guests, including those who labored on the
project, were on hand. “I have to tell you one of my favorite
moments was on the first night, I was sitting near some longtime
patrons and the woman stood up to go to the lobby for a
moment, and she turned to her husband and said, ‘Oh how nice,
we have so much more leg room!’ That was incredible: more seats
in the same space and more leg room.”
www.stage-directions.com • August 2010 29