The most prominent feature of the new building is the giant aluminium veil that encloses the auditorium of the Parade Theatre and juts skyward through the glass roof of the foyer. This veil reflects daylight into the expansive foyer space that currently houses examples of student costume design. At night, nine Griven Kolorado fixtures light up this aluminium veil in a sea of colour.
At the heart of NIDA is the Parade Theatre - a727-seater drum-shaped venue that is a far cry from the previous facilities. "With the aid of careful lighting, the audience need not feel they are seated in a large barn," said Tony Youlden, NIDA’s technical director and theatre consultant on this project. "As for the stage lighting, I’ve tried to go for equipment that can be moved around easily and is flexible. The auditorium has an elaborate system of catwalks, which creates the opportunity for good lighting angles. As it’s a much larger stage than people have experienced before, there’s more emphasis on FOH lighting."
Thus the luminaires are all Selecon, which Tony chose on "both performance and price. We got much better value out of the Selecon gear than any other brand - importing from New Zealand is a great advantage. I think the new Selecon Pacific 5.5 - 13° profiles are fantastic - almost custom-designed for this building."
In all, about 240 Selecon luminaires were installed including Profile Spots, Pacifics, Spotlights, Cyc units, and Ground Rows, as well as two Performer MSR followspots. Added to this were 60 Kupo 250V Par 64 cans with CP61 Lamps. Prolite PC spotlights are used to light the auditorium, with dichroic downlights lighting the galleries. To satisfy his dimming needs, Youlden auditioned both the Jands Hub and the Bytecraft APC. "I believe in distributed dimming, moving the dimmers around rather than having a big dimmer room locked away. There are eight Jands Hub 24 15 channel dimmer racks for FOH and fifteen of the new Bytecraft APC 12 channel wall-mount dimmer racks for onstage."
At the helm of all this is a Strand 520i 250-channel control desk with Tracker, Communiqué and Networker software, whilst a GSX runs the audience lighting. Youlden has been a ‘Strand man’ for many years: "The philosophy is something I understand and most theatrical centres in Australia have Strand desks, so if we’re training people to go work in the industry, it makes sense that we have one too." An elaborate system of internally wired bars hangs above the stage with large multicores and Weiland connectors. Stage & Studio, with the aid of Steve Firkin, installed the DMX and ethernet distribution system.
The PA system, supplied by Jands, is based around a JBL Evo system with a dbx 480 drive rack digital audio processor. A surround system consisting of 24 Sound Advance SA2B Surround Speakers is installed with eight speakers on each of the three levels in the auditorium. A Soundcraft 328XD digital audio console handles FOH mixing. "However I hasten to add that this is a drama theatre and if we have to use microphones, I feel we will have failed," said Youlden. "Sound is very fashion driven and no matter what you buy, people will criticize your decision." After a tour of the new facilities Mel Gibson was reportedly gob-smacked - quite an admission for an actor.
Catriona Strom
