Architect Tim Foster set about fulfilling Boizot’s dream of recapturing the splendour of traditional cinema in a state-of-the-art modern facility.
Strand luminaires, control and networking components form the lighting backbone in the 1,200-capacity art deco auditorium - specified by Northern Light, who won a competitive tender issued by Theatre Projects Consultants. Northern Light also undertook all the house electrical contracting, working with builder Marriot Construction, while for the specialist lighting they reported directly to Peter Boizot’s company, Mistvalley Ltd over the duration of the 10-month contract. The lighting designer on the project was Jim Morse, of Light & Design Associates. This was no small project for the overall budget for electrics (including alarms and security), production lighting, sound and projection equipment ran to £1.3million with Strand equipment alone accounting for up to £75,000 of this.
Northern Light project manager Nigel Love explained that the imperative had been to upgrade the venue to multi-purpose usage. He decided to base the lighting closely on his experience at the Lowry in Salford - particularly the Quays Theatre - and thus specified the Strand 530i with LCD monitors, keyboard and rigger’s remote. Running Tracker moving light software, the desk outputs on the ShowNet ethernet network between the 72 channels of Strand LD90 dimmers, which drive the house, work and architectural lighting, and 132 circuits of EC90 which handle the production lighting. Two SN103 network nodes, which extract or input DMX signals, extend the control and protocol options.
Two Howard Eaton DMX distribution plug-ins (including one in the stalls production area) stream DMX to two independent rings from the dimmer room control rack to and from all the lighting positions. The distribution system is also patchable, enabling touring companies to connect multicores straight through Broadway’s DMX circuits without the need to run any awkward control cable.
As for the stage lighting, the theatre has been equipped with a total of 178 circuits. The two lighting bridges each contain 18 circuits while the circle front lighting position offers a further eight. Luminaires include 10 each of Strand’s 23°-50° and 15°-30° beam angle SL zoom profiles, 10 1.2kW Cantata fresnels, four Pirouette moving yoke heads with Chroma Q colour scrollers, 80 Thomas Par 64 cans, a pair of Clay Paky VIP projectors (providing the ‘Broadway’ gobo patterns) and two Selecon MSR 1200 followspots.
In cinema mode, the venue boasts a 15m wide 7.5m high cinema screen which can be moved on tracks from its ‘play’ position in the proscenium to a ‘home’ position far upstage, enabling the space to be quickly reconfigured. For a live performance, the Broadway offers a 15m wide 9.6m deep thrust stage with adjustable house border, two full sets of drapery (black and silver) and a set of electrically-operated house tabs. There is no fly tower, but three line shaft winches have been installed for flying lighting bars and lightweight scenery. Various hanging points and manual and electric chain hoists enable incoming companies to fly their own trussing, etc.
At the front of the forestage, a lift has been included which has been designed for raising a cinema organ although it does offer the facility for moving equipment in to storage under the stage. Telestage Associates was responsible for the venue’s stage engineering.
The Broadway has two individual sound systems - a Tannoy system for productions and an EAW cinema system. Production sound uses Tannoy T300 cabinets fixed on the lighting booms on either side of the proscenium and from a flown central cluster, which can be hoisted up in to the ceiling
