To have a permanent stage or not?!

[PDD]

Background:

 

Getting a new theatre built. Existing theatre has a permanent raised stage at 1.1m which is too high for 'intimate' drama, so we often use the auditorium as flat-floor for smaller-scale plays in various formats, building seating out of staging to create end-on, thrust or in-the-round as appropriate. Raised stage is used for many one-off events, as well as musicals and occasional 'traditional' plays. School assemblies are also held in the hall (flat-floor), requiring part of the raised stage for those at the back to be able to see.

 

Problem:

 

In the new building, to have a permanent raised stage or a flat-floor area with demountable/temporary staging? I am pretty convinced we need a permanent raised stage. However, part of me wants flat-floor as it makes the space much more flexible and creates many more dramatic possibilities, but on the other hand, for the many one-off events such as talent shows, music concerts, rock concert, assemblies, one-night visiting plays/comedians/etc, we need a raised stage in place - which would take significant man-hours to install if it wasn't permanent. Not something I want to be doing just for one-night events. We are also having retractable seating installed, but intend to keep our existing staging to continue to create flexible seating arrangements on the hall floor. There is no possibility of any form of motorised adjustable-height flooring, because of budget.

 

Pros/Cons for Permanent Raised Stage

Pro: It's there when we need it!

Pro: It's stable and solid, and anything can be built on it.

Con: It uses up a large area of potential flat-floor space for exhibitions, discos, parents receptions, other events.

Pro: But does mean those events can happen while I'm building a show on stage out of sight.

Con: Limits some dramatic possibility as the stage is permanently defined (although temporary staging can still be used to create alternate layouts on hall floor and levels on stage, as we do now).

Con: Not level access between stage and auditorium, bad from DDA point-of-view (although solved by adjacent lift).

 

Pros/Cons for Flat Floor with Demountable Stage

Pro: Gives much bigger flat-floor space for 'alternative' drama layouts and other non-dramatic events.

Con: Time and manpower required to build stage when a raised stage is needed for many small events.

Con: Temporary staging will have less weight-loading and has the potential to be un-even, not solid.

Con: A lot of staging required to get a similar area for a musical-size stage.

Con: Can't have black stage floor as it would have to be the same 'posh' flooring as the rest of the hall.

Con: Overhead stage tower will be unsightly when in flat-floor.

Con: On which level will the scene dock/workshop/backstage be? Hall level or raised level? If the former, then access is not level for large scenery/piano/etc.

 

Anyway, I think you can see where my favour lies, but I'm interested in other opinions as we've had two well-respected theatre persons (formerly of the school) suggesting that we're missing an opportunity by not having a demountable stage. What are your opinions, and given the little bit of background I've given above, which would you choose?

 

The other question is: what height riser would you suggest? We're currently at 700mm in the plans, as this fits with the rest of the new building (it has to join into an adjacent existing building to provide an extension), but do you think this is too high / too low? Audience seating when using the raised stage will be a raked retractable bank, plus a permanent balcony at the back. (There are also 'wrap-around' side balconies, etc).

[broadcast_techie]

You seem to have talked yourself into the permanent stage, however what about a smaller stage with a temporary extension for those bigger shows?

[jamed2017]

Problem is if you have retractable seating, the stage will be higher than the front 2 rows if you have pernament. Unless you have a decent space inbetween or a drop?

 

"Con: Can't have black stage floor as it would have to be the same 'posh' flooring as the rest of the hall." Are theatre (flat floor) has black stage flooring as well as the laminate wood for the rest of the auditorium. Its defined by the curtains, Which adds definion to where the stage begins.

[gareth]

Problem is if you have retractable seating, the stage will be higher than the front 2 rows if you have pernament.

And the problem with that is ....?

[cedd]

What about a permanent stage made of temporary staging materials? It seems that all your jobs needing the stage are short notice or one off events, whilst your floor jobs are the ones yo'll have more time to plan for and to remove the temporary stagng.

 

As for the flooring, what about a roll out dance mat? These come in matt black, are easy to roll out, protect your hall floor and are much nicer to work on. You could then use it on the floor, or on the stage to dance on.

[paulears]

My own experience is that a flat floor is the most practical. We bought a pile of metrodeck - because the metric size fitting in almost exactly with the width. You are spot on about set up time, but you're not short of manpower - that's what the students are for, and if you do BTEC they can even get grades if you dress it up in assignment speak.

 

Practicalities were that we started flat each year, and then when the first event needed a raised stage, in it went, where it stayed until the next event that required a flat floor. We also used the same deck to construct tiered seating, playing from the flat floor. The deck was amazingly useful for clever design students. We did 'Billy', and there's a scene where a coffin gets lowered into the ground. The students suggested replacing one deck with a ply top, but with a coffin shaped hole so the coffin could get lowered into the stage. They designed the 'flap' and support system - which actually involved a student being under the stage all performance waiting to release the safety supports, get rid of the coffin then replace the supports so people could stand on it again.

 

The setup time isn't that bad - and it's the kind of repetitive job that is good for students in teams - kind of a contest where the team who erects the most safely gets the prize! Or, you give it to those you wish to punish. Boy against girls was my favourite. The girls would not even consider the blokes beating them, and the blokes took it as an insult when the dancers did it better and quicker!

 

Get-in is a simple ra-alloy ramp - which again is a useful item to have lying about.

[Roderick]

I would also suggest a 'permanent removable' stage, it will give you much more flexibility in the long run. You just need to reverse your thinking, build the stage in a fixed position and remove part or all of it when needed rather than building it every time you need it.

 

But I would look beyond 'risers' or fixed height rostra. Have a look at the Seco or StageRight stages, they are very flexible and easy to assemble, also allowing for different heights.

In the venue I managed we had a StageRight stage and we could build a full 60' x 40' stage in about 2 hours with 6 crew. And these systems would give you the same structural integrity as a fixed stage, I had cars drive on them! Another bonus was that the stage decks we had were reversible, black finish one side, grey carpet the other.

 

Go modular! For a school it will give you all the flexibility you want without compromising stability.

[Light Console]

My 2p, just before going to bed...so I'll keep it brief...

In my venue, there is an undercroft area, under the stage, about 7 feet high. This leads to a concrete floor (not too sure on its construction). Above that, we have underfloor heating, and a sprung dancefloor. Lovely, no dancefloor to lay.

HOWEVER, we cannot have anything but the lightest, most unhelpful Genie in, as anything else is just too heavy.

I would rather spend a few hours shifting staging about once in a blue moon, than spending hours every other week going up and down the talle refocusing!

Our staging is set at the back of the hall as choir risers, and the lowest tier can sit on top of the second tier, to form a larger stage area for percussion, at the height of the third tier. This takes 2 people 60 odd seconds.

[Russ83]

Thankyou for bringing this topic up Paul (it saved me typing all that description!) :)

I'll just mention a couple of extra points I've come across while doing the same research.

 

With the demountable staging do you have somewhere near to the hall to store 3 or 4 2mx1m trolleys full of staging/legs/railings/steps etc?

You haven't mentioned any drapes/house tabs. In our new hall they were looking at forming the pros. with drapes until I asked the question "So what are we supposed to do with them when the staging is not up...just leave them all hanging 1m off the floor?" I haven't had an answer for that one yet and am starting to give up any hope of having a usable stage by the time the architects and senior staff have finished with it! :)

 

While at PLASA I was having a good chat with Wango's Staging who were very helpful. The staging they supply is very light (in comparison with others) and incredibly quick/easy to setup.

[Colin]

I too vote for flat floor.

 

Con: Time and manpower required to build stage when a raised stage is needed for many small events.

Leave it set up as previously suggested

 

Con: Temporary staging will have less weight-loading and has the potential to be un-even, not solid.

Really an issue, most are rated to very practical weights, maybe no genie lifts but is that a realistic option? Bracing can remove the non-solidness and uneven can be solved by a series of different methhods from wooden blocks under the legs and spacers (depends on the decking sort)

 

Con: A lot of staging required to get a similar area for a musical-size stage.

True but if for 90% of the shows you do it is static you would never notice how much their is.

 

Con: Can't have black stage floor as it would have to be the same 'posh' flooring as the rest of the hall.

This can be solved by either dance floor as previously suggested or hardboard (which adds further flexibility of colour etc).

 

Con: Overhead stage tower will be unsightly when in flat-floor.

The price of flexibility :), with effort you might be able to mask it but depends of configuration.

 

Con: On which level will the scene dock/workshop/backstage be? Hall level or raised level? If the former, then access is not level for large scenery/piano/etc.

Ramp as previously suggested or a extra wide sloped run around which has general audiotorium height and stage height.

 

Other notes:

A school I do a bit of work in has a few movable retractable seating rakes which adds a huge amount of flexibility. (takes about 5mins to fold it away and a similar amount of time to take it out again) - very useful for getting rig access.

You are effectively building a studio space so you will want the flexibility of rigging positions and power every where. Many ground based dimmed sockets dotted around several control pannels for things like DMX. I also suggest these days greating a CAT 6 infasture put in specifically for technical purposes in new installs as much can already be run off it and more will do in the future.

Without being able to see the venue I cant comment on height of a raised stage but they are generally only REQUIRED if the seating isn't raked enough for everyone to see. Therefore is your raking is long and flat look at about 1.2m high however if high and short 45cm should be more than adequte.

[GRisdale]

Just to throw in a mad-cap alternative...

 

You could ask that the entire stage area be at -1m (or similar) from finished floor level, with a perfectly flat concrete floor. Staging would then bring the stage up to a "flat floor". Thus, when in flat floor mode you've got no issue storage issues, and you can extend the legs to raise the floor for a raised stage, but ALSO you'll have an understage for all manner of creative craziness (sp?). Additonally, if you ever have a really heavy structure to build you can build it through the stage onto the concrete, so no worries about loading the stage.

 

If being able to drive a genie on the stage is a major concern, there are staging systems strong enough, and the major problem with getting them flat is having a flat floor to base them on - which you should have (the flat floor I mean - not the problem!)

 

As for getting things up to the raise stage level, I'd ask for a small lift to be put in - they are comercially available, and pushing a piano up a ramp doesn't sound like much fun to me...

 

Best of luck with the new theatre and please, please, PLEASE remember to assume that your architects know nothing whatsoever about theatre ESPECIALLY if they refer to themselves as "specialists" or "experts" - to do otherwise will cost you for the rest of time... Ye be warned.

 

Gareth.

[PDD]

Thanks for the replies so far. Very useful and it looks like I need to re-evaluate again.

 

what about a smaller stage with a temporary extension for those bigger shows?

Could be the best compromise. I should say that we're up to the tenth version of the plans and it's just gone in for planning consent, so the fundamental decisions on the structure and outside of the building are now fairly fixed. To suit the site and for cost reasons nothing is being built downwards (except foundations et al), and one part even has to 'float' on a concrete plateau to avoid disturbing the roots of a protected tree, but there is also nothing planned for under the stage so having part of the stage area at hall/auditorium level would be quite easy. Probably with the back and sides of the stage at the higher raised level to allow for flat access to workshops/backstage (as I'm not keen on the idea of a ramp). Still not convinced it will have the same 'feel' as a traditional stage, however. Needs some more thought I think!

 

With the demountable staging do you have somewhere near to the hall to store 3 or 4 2mx1m trolleys full of staging/legs/railings/steps etc?

You haven't mentioned any drapes/house tabs.

Yes, plenty of storage space. We do have a large amount of Litedeck which will become semi-redundant in the new build, as it's currently used primarily for building a seating rake (new theatre will be retractable seats) as well as for staging uses, however it's all planned to be kept so some of this is ideal to use, although it's a bizarre non-standard size which makes it quite annoying. Budget-wise, re-using the existing will be important.

 

 

You could ask that the entire stage area be at -1m (or similar) from finished floor level

See above - can't dig down unfortunately. Cost.

[w/robe]

This may not help but the school I went to (long, long ago) had a retractable staging system. You could pull the first section (6' deep x width of hall) away from the wall and drop in the next 6' section on to supports connected by a system of struts. You then kept on fulling and dropped in the next section and so on. When it was all away it was bout 10' deep, that is 1 section out and the rest lent against the back wall. The pros. and legs were all fabric and they, and the lx bars, ran on tracks in the ceiling so that they could also be moved.

 

I've never seen another system like it but it was very quick and easy to alter the depth of the stage if you had 8 people to do it.

[cedd]

Taking GRisdale's idea one step further and thinking laterally.

 

Say for instance you want a 3ft high stage;

 

The hall floor is constructed in such a way that half the floor (one end) is 1 1/2 feet higher than the other, with a step half way down the room. The lower end is built up to make the floor level for flat floor use with staging. When you need a stage, you move this staging (Which is 1 1/2 feet tall) to the other end so it sits on top of the higher section of floor. You know have a floor 3ft higher than the sunken section, which is now where your audience sits.

 

You now have no stage storage issues. Also, if you think really laterally. With the addition of some more staging, you can use the raised end as the start of a raked seating arrangement, with the existing staging plus extra forming the tiers. The lower end of the hall now forms the stage with seating rising away from it.

 

You would need a flexible lighting, sound and drapes setup, plus somewhere to put your chairs, but that's it!

 

You get a crawl space under the stage in "stage mode", a flat floor with no staging storage issues in hall mode, and a raked seating setup as well.

 

Drawbacks would be that your stage is the same sizeas your audience however you play it, but assuming the room is a rectangular box, you can use drapes to bring the back of the stage nearer to the audience, creating storage space and a walkway behind.

 

In practice, I doubt people would go for it, but it's an idea I've not seen done before. Perhaps because it won't work, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Russ83]

Problem:

...We are also having retractable seating installed, but intend to keep our existing staging to continue to create flexible seating arrangements on the hall floor.

That could create a problem for Chris' lateral thinking.

Also which ever way you do it you either end up with half the hall floor black and the other polished or the the staging matching the floor and an awful surface to light when you erect it.

Interesting ideas though.