When should theatre planning start?

By the time a theatre looks wrong, it is concrete. The venues that work were planned as theatres before they were drawn as buildings - which means the honest answer is: earlier than almost everyone starts.

Geometry is destiny

Sightlines, focus positions and operability cannot be added later; they are properties of the room’s shape. At Bob Hawke College they were decided on the drawings with HASSELL Architects - which is why the technology never fights the architecture.

The theatre consultant beside the architect

Theatre planning is the theatre consultant’s discipline - a specific role that goes well beyond audiovisual systems. The theatre consultant brings the operating knowledge - what a stage manager needs to see, where rigging must land, how stage machinery serves the program, how a control room actually works on show night - while the architect holds the building. Perth Modern School’s auditorium came out of exactly that partnership with SITE Architecture, inside state guidelines.

What gets planned

The unglamorous essentials: rigging positions and loads, stage machinery, control locations, the orchestra pit and its lift, acoustic treatment that can change with the program - Perth Modern’s rotating side-wall reflectors and variable acoustic cloud were planning decisions long before they were installations.

The cost of starting late

Late planning buys compromises: seats with poor sightlines, rigging that cannot reach, control rooms that cannot see the stage. Every one is permanent, and every one was cheap to fix on paper. It is why schools like Como Secondary College, Mater Dei College and Piara Waters Senior High School have the theatre consultant engaged while their projects are still on paper. If a performing arts space is anywhere in your project’s future, the planning conversation should already be happening.