Yesterday, Nathan Luscombe, Head of Dept. Lighting at Adelaide Festival Centre conducted an ALIA Tour of the new-look Her Majesty’s Theatre in Adelaide.
Numbers were restricted to 10 people who all had to follow COVID protocols and complete a WHS site induction form.
Nathan was extremely generous with his knowledge and time, spending close to two hours conducting the tour.
The Tour Leader was Stephen Dean who took the photographs and jotted down the following notes on the venue:
“Feels comfortable like slippers, but also has that nice new car feel. The “refurbished” theatre is a nice space. It feels like a new theatre but still hangs onto its atmosphere. From the old dressing room walls that were signed by visiting artists that have been re-laid as a tribute to the old Her Majesty’s as you come through the scene dock door. The number of seats has increased to 1500. The stage area is a little larger.
As we were reminded there is a bar on every level of the foyer. The foyers are rather beautiful, as you look up you will see a tin ceiling based on the original tin ceiling. There is plenty of wood used in the foyer and auditorium that gives a nice warm feel to the space.
Audience seating is wonderfully comfortable, and the view from the seating of the stage is great. Even on the second balcony, the view of the stage is particularly good.
All the dressing rooms are new, bright, and airy. The rehearsal room is well designed. There is a decent green room. Also, a wardrobe room with plenty of natural light, in fact, some of the offices for the production team have natural light.
There is a ton of new gear and future-proofing. Streaming ACN for the lighting which is driven by ETC consoles such as a GIO. These drive some 600 channels of Jands Dimmers. Each channel 2.4kW. The dimmer room is a fine example of cable porn, all the cabling so well done by the installers, it will be a dream to fault find.
Lighting is a mixture of fixtures, from ETC Lustre fixtures and traditional incandescent fixtures. The bridges give great coverage from FOH. In fact, from a lighting designers’ point of view, the whole lighting set up is very versatile. I reckon it would not be that hard to rig your custom lighting design. Each patch point is hardwired to a dimmer.
Audio is also great. Sound is available throughout the auditorium. The main FOH is Adamson Line array. Each speaker has a dedicated amp. The console is a Yamaha. Plenty of patching options are available.
Overall this is a great venue that SA should be proud of. Even though there were some folks not happy that it seems to be a new building with the façade retained, it is very worthy. Larger foyers, more and better seating and enhanced technical service and cast amenities it is up there with the best theatres in the world.”
