project: Mountain View Community College Performance Hall

owner: Dallas County Community College District

location: Dallas, Texas

architect: Page Southerland Page

Overview

The Performance Hall at Mountain View Community College was renovated as part of a Dallas County Community College District bond program. The existing performance hall had already undergone some minor renovations, but the hall remained a dark and uninviting space with many broken audience seats, a dingy ceiling, low-wattage houselights, damaged wall veneer due to humidity issues, damaged stage draperies, and many other issues. This new renovation updated the entire finishes and treatments in the hall, replacement of audience seating, the addition of a formal proscenium wall, relocation of control booths and replacement of dated equipment, as well as new mechanical systems.

New Audience Vestibules

The original theatre had very small entrance hallways leading from the lobby to the audience chamber. At the same time, the original design also had the Lighting and Sound Control Booths located on the lower level, at the rear of the audience. The control booths were removed from the lower level and a much more adequate entrance vestibule was created. Encore Design Group provided acoustical recommendations in the new vestibules including floor-to-ceiling fabric wrapped sound absorption panels and low-level lighting to reduce sound and light within the vestibules from spilling into the audience chamber during performances.

New Control Booths

Directly above the original control booths was a very large followspot booth. This followspot booth was reconfigured to provide four new control booths. In the photograph the control booths from left to right are: House Right Followspot Booth (with fixed glass window), Sound Control Booth (no window, open to audience chamber), Lighting Control Booth (with operable windows), and House Left Followspot Booth (with fixed glass window). New technical intercom connections were provided in each of the booths as an extension to the existing technical communications system.

Room Acoustics

This performance hall has a long history of theatrical productions and musical recitals and symphony presentations. There was a time that the Dallas Symphony Orchestra performed and even made master recordings in this space due to its excellent room acoustics. Encore Design Group provided acoustical studies and recommendations to ensure that the new walls and finishes within the space would even excel the original room acoustics. Encore also addressed an acoustically problematic issue for the musical performers. Musical performances are typically presented downstage of the proscenium wall on the very generous forestage. While this made the performances more intimate, the musicians found that a significant amount of their energy was being absorbed by the main curtain that created their backdrop (the proscenium acoustical wall is shown in this photograph).

Proscenium Acoustical Towers

In response to the acoustical problem for musical performances downstage of the main curtain, Encore Design Group specified an acoustical wall to replace the main curtain during musical performances. The wall is created from a series of portable acoustical towers that are typically used as part of orchestra shells. These walls cover the proscenium opening providing a significant amount of reflection from the stage into the audience chamber. When not in use, the two tower wing walls are folded up and the towers are relocated to their storage position in the offstage wings.

Proscenium Wall

One of the biggest changes to the performance hall was the creation of a true proscenium. The original hall was provided a soft-sided adjustable portal over the stage to create the top of the proscenium arch and accordian style walls that could be extended and retracted as needed to create the sides of the proscenium. Over the years, the mechanisms that allowed the walls to open and close fell into disrepair and the walls were rarely moved. Also, adjusting the walls to any significant amount would create sightline problems from the audience to the offstage wings.

Tension Grid

Another problematic issue that was addressed in the renovation was the lack of lighting available for the performances taking place on the forestage. The performance area downstage of the main curtain simply did not have adequate lighting positions that allowed for downlighting and the positions at the catwalk resulted in harsh angles. As part of the creation of a new proscenium wall and to address the forestage lighting issue, Encore Design Group specified a tension grid to be installed directly over the forestage. The walking surface of this grid is comprised of various sections of tensioned 1/8" wire rope woven at 2" intersections. Above the grid is a series of mounting pipes for stage lighting as well as new lighting circuit plug boxes. To the underside of the tension grid is mounted a series of sound system loudspeakers for coverage to the audience. As the walking surface of the tension grid is not in the focal length of the stage lights, the light beam can shoot through the grid without any shadows from the wire weave appearing on stage.

Sound System

Because of extremely dated equipment and the relocation of the sound control booth, a fully new sound system was designed. The new system consists of an exploded cluster of main loudspeakers mounted to the underside of the tension grid, new mixing console, new processing equipment, new playback equipment, and a new sub-sound system at the stage manager's position to allow for the control of smaller presentations such as lectures. Also as part of the new sound system, a signal feed was sent from the performance hall to a nearby blackbox theatre (to allow for monitoring), as well as repair and/or replacement of loudspeakers in backstage/cast areas such as dressing rooms, scene shop, and corridors.

Lighting System Upgrades

While the performance hall had been recently provided a new large lighting control console, the existing lighting system did not have control of the houselights, the architectural control stations were dated, and some new lighting circuits were required. A new architectural control system was specified that would interface via DMX-512 to the existing stage lighting system. Circuits previously located in the demo'd over-proscenium portal were relocated to plugboxes at the tension grid, new stage lighting instruments were specified, and wall extensions were added to the existing side lighting coves to prevent light glare from being seen by the audience.