Middle School Tech Theatre students inaugurate new production booth

By Richard Sherrell, Middle and Upper School Performing Arts Faculty

Those visiting Founders Hall on the North Campus have noticed some big changes that occurred over the summer. The fireplace which hadn’t worked in years is gone and, in its place, a large box with three windows, looking much like the bridge of a cargo ship, juts out of the back wall and over the floor. It is Founders' new production booth, and it is just one of many renovations made to the auditorium through the combined efforts of Poly’s Performing Arts Department, lead by department Chair Cynthia Crass, Director of Facilities Dale Rasmussen, Chief Financial Officer Keith Huyssoon, and an expert team of construction, lighting, and sound contractors.

Last month, seventh- and eighth-grade Technical Theatre students took it on its maiden voyage. The young technicians were the first to work in the new booth and with its new lighting and sound components: an ETC Element Lighting console capable of running 10,000 light cues and controlling state-of-the-art LED lighting instruments and a Behringer Compact X32 digital sound mixer. Though it was certainly an exciting opportunity for the middle schoolers, it was accompanied by the great challenge of having to master the most sophisticated equipment ever to grace Poly’s North Campus theatre. They handled it extremely well, taking advantage of the Element’s many attributes, particularly its ability to control newly installed LED color-changing light fixtures, as well as easily playing and adjusting sound cues on the Behringer. Those students working in the booth on the seventh grade production of “10 Ways to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse” and “Dancescape,” as well as the eighth grade Musical Theatre and Dance Cabaret, found that it offered more advantages to them than simply new equipment.

Previously Middle School production stage managers were stationed on stage in the crowded wings, just outside the small on-stage booth, a cramped closet-like space occupied by light and sound board operators, offering no clear view of the stage. For January’s shows, the production stage managers, seventh-grader Brigitte B. and eighth-grader Lucy L., had great views of the stage and were better able to communicate with their crew. The light board operators, Connor B. (seventh grade) and Aasha T. (eighth grade) were sitting right by their PSM’s with perfect views of the stage, as were the seventh- and eighth-graders running sound, Kareem A. and Wiley R.

Until these productions, the spotlight operators were slid into small, cobweb-filled cubbyholes in the back wall by themselves on either side of the old fireplace. For these productions, seventh-graders Maren A. and Alex F. and eighth-graders Gwen B. and Bianca M. were running their newly refurbished Luminator follow spots, up in the nicely finished new booth, where their PSM could easily communicate with them.

These productions certainly benefited from the addition of the new booth and its equipment, as will future Middle School shows, but the booth’s impact will actually extend further than just the Middle School Technical Theater program. The same type of lighting console and sound mixer that are now in Founders are used in the Upper School, so students coming to Upper School from Middle School Tech will arrive with important training and experience in lighting and sound operation. It’s evident that Founders’ new booth and the many other renovations that accompanied it are very big changes indeed and definitely changes for the better.