Pretoria's Magnificent Aula Theatre: In the Middle of Rennovation

The Aula Theatre at the University of Pretoria


The Aula Theatre was designed by Karel Joost in 1951, and built between the years of 1956 and 1958. It has 1012 seats and was the major opera venue in Gauteng until the State Theatre was built in the early 1980’s.

Photo source: http://repository.up.ac.za/upspace/handle/2263/6795

Leon Pienaar did a sketchup model of the theatre based on Joost’s plans in 2008. One can find it on Goodgle 3D Warehouse along with other University of Pretoria buildings.


http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=e9264075e30cccbbf1e3e89aa55457a5&ct=mdcc&start=48

You can see the fly tower is huge, and the glass fronted lobby brings a lot of natural light.

 Currently the Aula is going through some massive upgrades so much so that I was able to hold a lighting workshop with their brand new ETC Sensor dimmers in March before anyone could use them. The renovation continues with the lighting bars being installed on motorized winches, and a new roof and lobby upgrades. I encourage you to click on the photos below to enlarge them in order to appreciate the detail.


A lighting designer sitting in the house seats would look house left to see a rather large Reiger pipe organ that takes up prime lighting location real estate. I have been told the organ gets played once a year. It is getting a computer assisted something or other to make it even better.

The photo shows the house left side of the Aula theatre auditorium featuring the Reiger organ. The theatre’s designer was not concerned about lighting angles or positions. If you look above the audience seats at the ceiling, you see the spines or fins that support the roof but also get in the way of angles for lighting positions.

The stage is completely empty now because they have been working on the rigging. This theatre used to house operas until the Pretoria State Theatre was built. It looks huge, doesn't it? The front view of the stage shows how magnificent the space is. It is certainly not a dark theatre. The lighting desk in the blond wooden box dead center because the designers and technicians abandoned the original lighting control room for the better viewing angle.

The close-up of the Reiger organ shows how huge it is. I would really love to play it! (I got to play the organ at the Masonic Temple in Guthrie, Oklahoma…)

The Aula Theatre runs its lights from an ETC lighting desk. Johnnie Heinemann, Facilities Manager, is looking into upgrading to an ION or an EOS. It was very nice to find ETC equipment at the University of Pretoria.

In fact, the Aula theatre has brand new ETC Sensor dimmers! Pictured here are the old dimmers, and pictured below are the new ETC Sensor dimmers which take up a lot less space.

The view of the Aula theatre’s auditorium from the stage gives you a fair idea of what more than 1000 seats looks like. You can see the FOH lighting positions are just rectangular slots in the ceiling. Trust me when I say they are scary to get to, and even worse to work with. This access is something that is addressed in the Aula’s renovation.

The fly gallery photo shows four operating levels. Handlines are on one level up, and the motorized lighting bar winches are on an upper level. The lighting bars have been lowered to proscenium height in this photo.

 

In this photo of the rope locks for the linesets, you can appreciate how tight the flyspace is from upstage to downstage. Below are great details of a rope lock and the take-up sheaves.

Rope lock at the Aula Theatre

Take-up sheaves at the Aula Theatre

Just looking at the hemp control rope made me look around for gloves…

The electric winches are used for the electric bars and run from this unit on the flyrail level.  The winches themselves are up above on another level and look like this:

 And below 1is a close-up of one of the winches with the aircraft cable wrapped around its drum.

This photo above is the view of the Aula stage from the middle fly gallery position.I was standing above the proscemium but below the top fly height looking stage right when I took this picture.

And you get to the various fly galleries by climbing up this long ladder. This photo is from the bottom of the ladder.

I’ll close this blog post with a photo of the Aula team and myself. From left to right: Mark White of ETC Europe, Johnnie Heinemann, Heine Grobler, Heidi Hoffer, Hein Zentgraf of T&A Lighting/Prosound, Boy Magnussen of T&A Lighting/Prosound, and Ian Blair the General Manager of T&A Lighting/Prosound.  I really appreciated being able to interview the team members, and be shown around the Aula Theatre in the middle of its renovation. Photo was taken by Phuti.

Dead Computer

Hello World by Design blog readers,

     Did you know computers are very expensive here in South Africa? I had the opportunity to find out when my tried and true Sony Vaio laptop expired. Shame. To sum it up, I spent hundreds of Rand trying to revive it, and it is a total loss. This accounts for the hiatus in my blogging. I am shopping for a replacement computer.

I just loved the electrical engineer's collection of computer parts and work tables in the offices where I tried to have my computer revived. The fellow in the picture managed to save the information from my hard drive.

     I have been extremely busy with teaching two design classes at the University of Pretoria and traveling to Cape Town to interview stage managers, production managers and directors from the Artscape Theatre to the Spier Winery amphitheatre. Photos and reports should come soon. But in the meantime I am also designing a show at the University of the Witwatersrand, assisting on the lighting ( and doing some scene painting, too) for Winnie the Opera--at the Pretoria State Theatre, doing a scenic art workshop at the Market Theatre centered around sculptural destruction and ageing...and designing two shows for University of Pretoria.

     The 1,155 seat open-air Spier Amphitheatre in Stellenbosch near Cape Town was the site of a fine evening of Afrikaans Cabaret. The performance was In Villiers de Villiers and Amanda Strydom with Music Director Janine Neethling. This outdoor venue has become a sought-after venue for productions ranging from opera to drama since its inception some years ago. It is also the primary venue for Spier's annual Summer Festival, which runs from November to March. This musical evening was part of the Woordfees Festival week. I specifically interviewed Spier Amphitheatre's world-class Stage Manager Ronel Jordaan whose stage management skills have taken her on Broadway shows through most of Asia and the UK as well as South Africa. 

    Wednesday, March 16th I took nearly 30 UP students,UPArts staff and faculty to the Cirque Du Soleil's venue in Johannesburg for a much sought after backstage tour.  A full report will follow in another blogpost but here's a teaser.



Backstage Tour of Cirque du Soleil's Saltimbanco in Johannesburg at the Coca-Cola Dome.



     Saturday, March 26th I provided a huge all-day lighting workshop at University of Pretoria courtesy of Johnny Heinemann and his UPArts colleagues and Ian Blair of Prosound, the company that provided all of the ETC lighting equipment and EOS and ION lighting boards. We had nearly 50 participants including professional designers, faculty and students.We also had two professional Tango dancers who brought the rhythms of the dance into our bodies so we could design and light two Tangoes in the afternoon.



Prosound (http://www.prosound.co.za/) provided ETC lighting equipment for a huge lighting workshop at the University of Pretoria March 26. Heidi Hoffer directed the participants through many hands-on lighting applications including accessories, lens sizes and lighting two competitive Tangoes.



Stage Lighting Instruments Used in The Wits Theatres

          Most of the theatre lighting technology at Wits is from Europe, with a small number of ETC Source Four Zooms from the United States. The lighting consoles include a Strand series 200 (manual, 24 Channel, 2-Preset) and a Strand series 300 (programmable). The software for these has been discontinued, so as they fail they must be replaced.
Julian, the head of lighting here has been trying out an ETC ION and a Grand MA. ETC unfortunately as yet does not have the support back-up necessary to really land a sale, yet, but I know the groundwork is being made with certain vendors here. The Grand MA Ultra, seems to be the current choice of replacement console for the main theatre. Most everyone here relies upon Strand equipment.

          (The theatre on the education campus has a Strand MX with 48 channels. This theatre, called the “Space Frame” is certainly an interesting reconfigurable theatre which I will address in another blogpost.)

Theatre Lighting at Wits…

To begin, while the stage pin connector is a standard 2P&G, it is rated for 16 amps at 250 volts, and looks triangular.

http://clifguy.com/2008/01/20/how-to-make-your-electrical-stuff-work-in-south-africa/

There is a great safety item in all modern household circuits here as well as on all of the circuits you’d plug stage instruments into: each circuit has its own switch!

Circuit # 102 has its own 2 pin and ground outlet, complete with rocker switch to turn the circuit on or off. It also has a masking tape label for what gets circuited when the plot is restored to the standard plot.

In the above picture you can see the end of one of the stage electrics, with its top batten, electrical raceway, and bottom hanging batten. If the instrument doesn’t work after you’ve hung and circuited it for show, part of the trouble-shooting includes seeing if the damned switch was turned on!! ALL circuits have this safety item whether they are standard wall outlets or stage circuits.

This is a Harmony Profile 22/40 Zoom 

One of the well-used instruments here is the Harmony 22/40 degree beam angle zoom and it’s narrower brother, the Harmony 15/22 degree beam angle zoom. These were manufactured by Strand in 1981, and have been  steadfast performers. They are an ellipsoidal spotlight, shutterable, accept gobos, and work very well at hard focus or soft focus. Here is a link to the historic Rank Strand instrument archive featuring these babies: http://www.strandarchive.co.uk/lanterns/documents/harmony2240data1.jpg

This is a Harmony PC instrument.

The Harmony PC is the most interesting instrument because it is not shutterable and it’s beam quality lies somewhere between that of an ellipsoidal and a Fresnel. It has a single adjustment (knob is featured in the picture below) for a diffused beam variable from a very tight spot, similar to a beamlight, to a wide angle flood. The beam edge quality, which is free from colouration, is similar to a soft-focused ellipsoidal spot, but much tighter than that of a Fresnel.

The underside of a Harmony PC.

In the above picture showing the bottom of the Harmony PC you can see the round black knob that you loosen to slide the lamp/reflector sled assembly forwards or backwards in the slot. This particular instrument has the lamp/reflector close to the lens for a wide beam. (Instrument is pointing downwards to the stage floor)  Here is the link to the historic document from the Strand Archives about the Harmony PC: http://www.strandarchive.co.uk/lanterns/documents/harmonypcdata1.jpg

Checking the circuit to a Quattro Pro.

In this photo above, the student lighting technician is turning on the circuit to a Strand Quattro PM Fixed Angle profile (650w)... and apparently held together by black gaffer tape, as identified by Julian. Behind her head is one of the Harmony Fresnels. Here's the link to the Harmony Fresnel: http://www.strandarchive.co.uk/lanterns/documents/harmonyfdata1.jpg

The beautiful tin ceiling of this theatre has been painted black, of course. This picture was taken in The Nunnery Theatre at Wits during the lighting design class final exam.

More lighting instrument stories are planned...including dimmable fluorescents and Fresnels that look like metal eggs!