A Tale of two Theatres
It
shouldn’t come as a shock for many people to hear that Victorians love
their theatre. It is no surprise therefore, that Drama is rapidly becoming one
of the fastest growing subjects on the High School curriculum, particularly
among VCE (year 11 and 12) students. Caulfield Grammar recently addressed this
trend by investing in two new, identical Performing Arts Centres – one
at their Caulfield Campus and one at their Wheelers Hill campus.
Architects John Gribble Pty Ltd designed a functional space with the assistance of theatre consultants Entertech and electrical engineers Adrian Newman & Associates. With 16 years experience in the industry, Lightmoves was contracted to provide Lighting and Audio Visual infrastructure throughout both venues. Before work commenced on site, Lightmoves created shop drawings showing cable routes and types for the electrical contractors. This included cables for DMX (consisting of three sets of two universes of input, and twenty DMX outlet locations), Ethernet (cable termination to 15 locations), Paging, Intercom, House Lighting Control, Video and Show Relay.
As the theatrical lighting outlets onstage needed to be relocatable, 50mm
Circuit Tube was used. The 6m long pre-wired bars were affixed to the scenery
batons allowing distributed power to any bar. The fan-out was then patched to
LSC iPRO dimmers as required. Each of the theatres contained eight bars with
an impressive total of 96 outlets.
In order to assist the individual with one of theatre’s toughest jobs,
Lightmoves designed and built a Stage Manager’s console. Featuring an
all steel frame, large lockable castors, a cable harness, a flip-up lid and
double doors underneath, it truly is a Stage Manager's dream. 
The customised console was also home to a Creative Audio C120 intercom master
station, an audience recall tone button, a digital countdown / timer, and a
Littlite gooseneck task light. The intercom master feeds two talkback loops
that can be accessed at any of the 27 intercom points located throughout the
building. To enable cast and crew to hear the show relay, a Shure SM89 Microphone
was mounted on the number one lighting bridge.
Communication with the public area’s, such as the foyers, gallery and ticket box, was made possible through the use of a high quality paging system using JBL Control24 speakers, Australian Monitor amplifiers and a Peavey Digitool processor.
Lightmoves final task was to create global lighting control for the four distinct
systems of lighting – audience / foyer lights, on-stage "work lights",
on-stage blue working lights and general backstage lighting. This was implemented
using Dynalite Architectural Dimmers controlled by an easy-to-use push button
panel located on the Stage Managers console. Anybody who has worked in an older
theatre would appreciate how much easier this makes life!
These two matching installations provided Lightmoves with a variety of different
tasks and challenges. With a work force exceeding 30, Lightmoves are able to
eliminate the need for subcontractors in most situations, guaranteeing a consistently
high standard of workmanship. It is this reliability backed with a wealth of
experience that keeps Lightmoves at the top of the proscenium in theatre installations.
As for the students… well, they love their new theatres. Why wouldn’t
they?
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