Web design and maintenance:
Element48 Systems

Updated:
 23 Nov 2006

The New Theatre

Some of our committee members were recently invited to look at the architectural plans for the new Ashwood College performance space. It’s thrilling to see things moving in a definite direction, making 2007 an incredibly exciting year to look forward to. The school is topping up the $1 million grant with $700,000 of their own money, which scares them somewhat! We’re not yet allowed to publish the diagram, but we can describe the new building and the timeline.

The plans will be put out to tender early in 2007. Tendering process will probably take until March, meaning no building works will interfere with Cinderella or Merchant of Venice. The hall will be useable during works, except for a period when power will be cut. The builders will be given dates to try avoiding, but you never know your luck in a big city. The odds of having no problems favour us, but we may need to consider an alternative venue or bringing in a monster generator. Hopefully it will all be over before season 4. The new theatre will be built on the current car park in front of the foyer, so there will be a time when entering the hall can only be done from the side or rear.

 Some features:

   * New building has a black box performance space and an adjacent multi-media room. The MM room has expensive equipment, but they don't mind our adult members being in there.

   * Other rooms include a green room, some storage rooms, an elevated biobox (accessed by a spiral staircase) and a drive-in loading bay. The biobox will have electronic communications to the green room.

   * Air-conditioning and heating for the black box is separate from the main hall.

   * Being built on the site of the current visitors' car park means the car park will move down the hill, the gas mains will be re-routed and the electrical switchboard will be moved. Circuits will be beefed up to counter the blackouts we sometimes cause.

   * The current foyer will be shared, as will the re-painted toilets and the kitchenette.

   * The rows of chairs currently stored in the foyer will be moved into a new hatch to be built under the front of the stage.

   * The sports curtain will be replaced, probably by a solid wall with sets of double-doors. This means the foyer will lose access to heating in the hall.

   * The new building can show a proper sign such as "Home of the Hartwell Players" (yay!), although we may prefer to have that on the fence line somewhere.

   * There will be more seats than first planned. These extend and retract electrically (apparently into a single row). Once retracted they can be wheeled into many positions, making the performance space adaptable.

 As the money runs out, the school hopes we can buy/supply some or all of: curtains, sound system, extra lights. The curtains would be the most important item, as they will cover the walls and the entrances into the performance space.

 Ashwood’s drama teacher, Aidan, is going to Germany for a lot of 2007 (to be a rock star) and a woman called Jan will be our main drama contact. She was thrilled at the level of junior involvement we have and feels she can recruit for us from amongst the students.

[Home] [About Us] [Auditions] [News] [Calendar] [Page 1 Dec 2006 News] [Page 2 Dec 2006 News] [Page 3 Dec 2006 News] [Page 4 Dec 2006 News] [Events] [Past Shows] [Links]