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| The Terrace Theater, November 2017 |
[Full Disclosure: I am a current employee of the Kennedy Center. Any opinions expressed in this piece are my own personal views and do not represent that of the Center, its management, or its staff.]
The Terrace Theater, a venue of supreme acoustics, intimate stagings, and interesting architecture.
Throughout my time scouring through blueprints, I have wondered what the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater was supposed to have originally looked like. The Terrace Theater we knew prior to its 2016-17 renovation was a later build to the Kennedy Center, not designed by the original building's architect, Edward Durell Stone. What did Stone have in mind for this space? I finally found the answer when I acquired his 1967 book, Recent and Future Architecture. His plan for the space blew my mind away, and I wanted to share it with everyone else.
Edward Durell Stone's theater on the Terrace Level was called both the Film Theater and Studio Theater. [Since almost all of my sources called it the Studio Theater, I will also be referring to it as such]. In this venue, you could watch 35mm or 70mm films, or you could view a live performing art form. But I would argue the true star was the theater itself.
In this theater, the back portion of seats were composed of typical auditorium seating, nothing special. However, the front half of the seating section and the front half of the stage were on a turntable. This way, you could rotate the stage and half the audience to face whatever direction you wanted them to. You could leave the audience in a traditional proscenium setup; or revolve the turntable so you could have a traverse stage; or the audience could be on two adjoining sides, moving the stage into a corner of the house. You could have 360 stage positions to choose from!
Now, the seating rake was pretty steep in this theater. How would audience members at the top of the back seating section get a good view of the stage when the turntable was not in a proscenium setup? Well -- the turntable was all on a lift. It could be raised and lowered as needed. Everyone would be able to see the whole stage.
But wait, there's more! The front of the stage would have the capability of lowering down into an orchestra pit. A lift, within a turntable, all on another lift.
That's not all. Just for kicks and extra flexibility, the proscenium arch of the theater was also movable. It could move up and down-stage.
Edward Durell Stone's Studio Theater was absolutely bonkers in the best of ways. A director had many options to choose from to create the ideal setting for their work. It was a space for the experimental, but it could also play nice with the traditional performing art forms. This was the space for everything that could not work in the larger, more-stationary houses downstairs. With around 500 seats, everyone was close to the action, so it could produce more intimate experiences. As Stone stated in his 1967 book, "Thus, under one roof, provision is made for every facet of the performing arts [at the Kennedy Center]."
From concept art, the decor of the theater was pretty barren. The walls were dark wood paneled with no further adornment. Above a zig-zag ceiling were catwalks able to light the stage wherever it was moved to.
This was the first theater I had heard of that had a transformable design, so I began searching for other examples. I found quite a few experimental theaters of note*, but I wanted to highlight two examples that were the most relevant:
There was Walter Gropius' never-built Total Theater design of 1926. Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus School, which shaped the twentieth century architectural Modernism trend. With the Total Theater, Gropius wanted audiences not just to be passive spectators, but feel actively part of the show experience. This theater rejected the idea of a proscenium theater setup, and instead tried everything else. The Total Theater would have a large, wide stage opening. Action could happen in one section, while moving curtains could hide set changes in another. A circular front seating section could be lowered down and replaced with a stage area. This section also had turntable capabilities. If you wanted a theater-in-the-round setup, the next section of seats was also on a turntable, and could rotate the smaller turntable closer to the center of the space. The turntables would be capable of rotating independently of each other. Surrounding the seating was a walkway that could double as a performance space during the show. The walls were composed of 12 screens, which could play films surrounding the audience from every angle.
Stone's Studio Theater most likely took inspiration from Gropius' Total Theater idea. Gropius & Stone were both contemporaries of each other. They also knew each other, both having exchanged correspondences. With Stone being well-read in architecture, it would not be a far stretch to imagine he based the Studio Theater off the Total Theater.
I also discovered the Gillian Lynne Theatre in London. Originally named the New London Theatre, this 1973 venue was designed by Paul Tvrtkovic and Sean Kenny. It is a similar design to the Studio Theater, and was based on Gropius' Total Theater. This theatre features a revolving front audience section and stage. The theatre's rake is not as steep as the Studio's, so no lift is required. However, there are screw jacks underneath the movable audience section to make its rake steeper when the stage is set in a traverse setup. This theatre can do everything Stone's Studio was supposed to do, and more! The walls can rotate and shift to change the shape of the theater. The ceiling panels work similarly to Venetian blinds and can be angled to face a certain direction.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any videos online of the Gillian Lynne Theatre transforming. Most productions that have used the space have only used it in a proscenium setup. The main exception is probably the theatre's most famous production -- the original run of Cats (1981-2002). Cats incorporated the turntable into their show. Before the show, audience members sat in a traverse stage setup. As the overture played, the seating rotated 180 degrees to reveal the set. Ads for the show noted that "Latecomers not admitted while auditorium is in motion."
*Other Experimental Theaters of Note:
Revolving Theatre Český Krumlov
National Theatre's Olivier Theatre (Video)
Walt Disney World's Carousel of Progress attraction (Full show HERE)
Tokyo Disneyland's defunct Meet The World attraction (There are videos online, but not very good quality. Also in Japanese so I don't know what's going on)
Rotating Theater to make a Separate Mini-Auditorium (More information HERE)
So, Edward Durell Stone's Studio Theater was set to open along with the three Kennedy Center venues below on the main level. But this theater would never see an audience. Check out Part II to learn what happened, and how the Studio Theater became the Terrace Theater...
POSTSCRIPT
Like any building, details change throughout the design process. Most of the plans I found had the lobby layout I used above. Yet on one plan, the Studio Theater had a stair entrance similar to the theater entrances found in the Grand Foyer. This was to be the only original theater not attached to the Grand Foyer -- I have a feeling Stone wanted to make the lobby space mimic the Grand Foyer on a smaller level. It even has floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Potomac River. I don't know why it was scrapped, but the design Stone ultimately went with seems to be more space-conscious.
SOURCES
Edward Durell Stone "Recent & Future Architecture"
The theatre projects of Walter Gropius. Wendell Cole
The Edward Durell Stone Papers
Arthur Lloyd Archive: The Gillian Lynne Theatre
Theatrecrafts.com: Cats
Kennedy Center Conceptual Map - Kennedy Center Archives
