Word: opened
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Dates: during 1960-1960
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...well known, the open stage had to be diametrically opposed to a proscenium arrangement. The open stage presupposes seating on three sides, (sketch No. 1) while the proscenium is a picture frame arrangement, with the audience seated as though watching a movie (sketch...
...early stage of the design, Bob Chapman and I consulted several well known stage designers and critics in New York. One, after listening to the proposal, said that architects in Europe and America have tried unsuccessfully to solve this problem for many years. He advised us to abandon the open stage and make a good design for proscenium productions. This advice made the challenge even greater...
...design process, many possibilities were tried and abandoned. Eventually, a seemingly simple idea evolved: the room would be a simple rectangle, half of the seats set in stadium fashion, the other half on elevators capable of being shifted from proscenium style into a second position, making space for the open platform stage (sketch No. 4). Shortly after this breakthrough, Bob Chapman introduced M. Michel St. Denis, noted French producer and theater expert whom the University had asked to advise on the design concept. We spent many profitable hours exchanging theories and ideas. St. Denis was sympathetic with our views...
After this meeting, it was decided to include a curved seating arrangement, but this decision seemingly complicated the idea for using lifts to convert the normal proscenium seating to an open stage projecting into the audience, with seats on three sides. A number of different ways of converting the theater and moving some of the seats as well as the stage were considered...
...simplest solution--using the hydraulic lifts, which were essential to the "open stage"--appeared to be the rotation of banks of forward seating. It seemed that the only problems here (sketch No. 5) were matters of mechanics, engineering and cost...