Australia-As part of the new Darling Quarter precinct and in a collaborative effort between Lend Lease and Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority(SHFA),a new state of the art children's theatre and performance space has been created.Lend Lease and SHFA jointly selected Monkey Baa Theatre Company as the resident company for the new Lend Lease Darling Quarter Theatre.The venue houses the company's office,as well as facilitating rehearsals and performances.
The theatre is the only purpose-built performance space for children in Australia and the first major addition to Sydney's arts infrastructure since Carriageworks,which opened in Redfern in 2007.
The technical fit out of the theatre is a turnkey project Jands completed in partnership with The PA People.Rob Mitchell of RTM International was the theatre consultant engaged by Lend Lease.
An ETC Ion 1000 console with radio focus remote and a remote playback unit for backup was chosen for lighting control.Production and operations manager Toby Knyvett has been using it since Monkey Baa moved into the venue earlier this year.
"The Ion is definitely becoming the standard in Australian theatres,"commented Knyvett."It offers the best compatibility with what regional theatres have in terms of older and newer generation equipment.It has a traditional theatre style of operation but offers much greater control of moving lights and intelligent fixtures than the older generation of consoles.Our Ion 1000 console has been fantastic."
The theatre is currently showing Goodbye Jamie Boyd with lighting designed by Luiz Pampolha.Goodbye Jamie Boyd requires very detailed timing in its lighting control including lots of part cues and split times plus follow-ons,and Knyvett reports that the Ion has coped flawlessly.
"The way the console is laid out makes it easy to follow,it's easy to see which part you are editing,"he added."We also have a complete Pathport DMX over Ethernet distribution system which is a great partnership with the Ion system."
Lighting fixtures include 20 ETC Selador Vivid-R 11"LED luminaires.
Monkey Baa also took delivery of 26 ETC Source Four Zooms 15-30 degrees,12 ETC Source Four Zooms 25-50 degrees and 26 ETC Source Four Fresnels.
Twenty-one segments of Jands JLX-Lite lighting bars,a static unit not to be flown,are installed and Jands distributed general purpose power to all of the lighting bars for running gear such as the Selador fixtures.Six of the Jands WMX wall-mounted,12-channel(2.4KVA)dimmer racks specifically designed for contracting and theatre applications were installed.
Staging elements are fairly simple with no fancy machinery;Jands supplied a drapes package,a cyclorama and rigging points in the ceiling.
For the PA a JBL VRX line array system was specified consisting of two hangs of three VRX932LA boxes along with two VRX918SP powered subs.The system is driven by two Crown XTI 6002 power amplifiers whilst a Crown XTI 2002 amplifier powers the foldback of four JBL MRX512M 12"passive monitors.System processing is via BSS Audio Soundweb London BLU-100.
Microphones supplied include four each of Shure Beta 58 Vocal and Shure SM57 Instrument models.FOH mixing duties are handled by a Soundcraft LX7II console which Toby says is ideal for theatre work.
