Theatre consultant Richard Stuart was engaged to plan and oversee the fit-out of the theatre. He explains: "Originally the theatre was going to be a large cinema but halfway through construction they developed the idea of making the largest cinema a live theatre. Consequently the building design was put on hold for a while whilst the theatre design evolved. As the developer started to think about theatre equipment and machinery, I was brought in as Theatre Consultant for the project although the building structure was well and truly locked in design-wise."
The main issue to be addressed was turning a large rectangular box cinema into a theatre space. In achieving this, the whole cinema was raised up one floor in the building and that resulted in having an orchestra lift that could double as the loading access for the stage which is four metres above the street level to the rear of the shopping centre. In fact beneath the theatre is a bottle shop and supermarket which ultimately determined the physical layout of the theatre building.
"This poses logistic problems with getting scenery and props into the building," said Richard. "Scenery, props and equipment are loaded in under stage level, travels through the under stage area onto the orchestra pit and lift and is then raised up onto the stage."
Richard turned to Jands for a theatre engineering solution and they delivered a design for the orchestra pit lift using four Serapid lift mechanisms resulting in - according to Richard - a very smooth operating, extremely quiet and very efficient orchestra lift. "It works very well and everyone has been very happy with the orchestra lift," said Richard. "Jands also supplied the flying system; originally the theatre was going to have a counterweight fly system but the design didn't have any fly galleries, loading gallery or grid. Consequently I was very concerned about the safety aspects of using counterweights in that sort of environment and so we explored the option of using a mixture of manual and motorised winches for the fly system."
Currently the theatre has a fly system of 17 lines with structural provision made for more to be installed. There is a full set of traditional black legs and border masking, two sets of tabs and a cyc all on manual winches as 'set and forget' standard masking. Four Jands JLX lighting bars are on 500kg Jands H350 pile wind electric winches.
"The JLX lighting bars are pre-wired with multicore tails and Socapex connectors with patching on the prompt side as we managed to get one small fly gallery installed during construction that allows for the lighting bars to be patched," said Richard. "For scenery, we have four variable-speed computer-controlled Jands SP650AC scenery batten winches and, whilst four isn't many, it's better than none. They afford great functionality and safety in the operation of the venue which we consider very important. Many shows coming through will be regional one-nighters and the scenery battens afford most of them the opportunity to quickly and easily hang up a few pieces of scenery or effects."
"The Jands installation has addressed the safety requirements and logistical constraints in the Capitol Theatre admirably and the project has benefited from Jands' highly experienced engineering, design and installation teams, said Richard."
(Lee Baldock)
