Auditorium

“ At the stage door a particularly bewildered-looking man with a rolling eye and a weak jaw, rendered limp and helpless by the polyglot aliens who had flocked upon him, strickenly let them in, to grope their way, amid what seemed an inextricable confusion, but was in reality the perfection of orderliness, upon the dim stage, beyond which stretched, in vast emptiness, the big, black auditorium. ”

“ Lighted at night by electricity as if by sunshine, the floor is a vast garden of human faces, all turned to the small platform on which the sloping tiers from behind converge. Around this auditorium, with its forest of light wooden pillars and braces, runs a glass-inclosed alley, and standing outside in the alley throng the spectators for whom there are no seats. ”

“ As if created by the musical notes, the entire array of benches lining the auditorium was filled from floor to parapet with men and women. A million human beings had suddenly sprung to life where, a moment before, there had seemed to be stark emptiness. Each of the innumerable societies, in its place, glittered in its flame-garments, tinted according to its quality and function in the state ”

“ Now for the theater itself, which is, after all, the main interior attraction of the Auditorium, the smaller halls and office suites which are contained in the main structure possessing only a commercial interest. The theater has a regular seating capacity of 4,000, though when it is arranged for a convention or a ball it will hold three times that number. The stage is ninety-eight feet in width and 6,862 square feet in area. The great lobby with its massive pillars and porticos, prepares the visitor for the sublime magnificence of the immense audience chamber. ”

“ Thus the lofty windows above the gallery gave the auditorium of the theatre its only source of ventilation and of light except, indeed, from artificial means. A door opened on the side street, and some windows were in the rear, and the house was provided with no other exit in front than a great door, at the end of a long, tunnel-like lobby, opening upon the broad avenue, which served for the admission and the dispersal of the audience. ”

“ I should like the auditorium of my theatre to be small, holding at the most a thousand persons, and consisting of a sort of open space without boxes, small or great, because these nooks only encourage scandal or worse. ”

“ There are, of course, other types of auditorium and platform than that of the theatre. Churches, lecture halls, and the chambers of legislative assemblies are planned with the same general end of making a person or persons at one part of the room audible and visible to many persons gathered in another part. ”

“ Stripped of its galleries and scenery, a theater consists of two four-walled structures, the auditorium being about square in plan, and the stage floor about the same width as the auditorium, and half the depth. The walls of the stage are carried considerably higher than the roof of the auditorium, in order to accommodate the drop curtains, which are hung by ropes that pass over pulleys attached to what is known as the gridiron, a stout framework located near the roof of the scene loft. ”

“ It should be the clubhouse of the people, where they could find the principal newspapers and periodicals of the world. Its auditorium should be like a theatre. Plays should be presented by home talent; an orchestra formed, music cultivated. The people should meet there at any time they desire. ”

“ Theatre buildings are light and flimsy wooden structures, with straw-mats and matting everywhere. They are all alike—a square auditorium with a sloping floor, a single low gallery, and a stage the full width of the house. The floor space is divided into so-called boxes by low railings, that serve as bridges for the occupants to pass in and out. Visitors always sit on the floor, each box being six feet square and designed for four people. ”

“ THERE is an uninteresting part to every theatre—a part which is so isolated from the luxury of the auditorium and from the glamour and mystery of the stage as to be associated with neither. It is usually reached from a frowsy little side-street through an ugly narrow entrance. The stone stairs are steep, and the flagged landings are restricted to the accommodation of one portly tenor and a large soprano. ”

“ The whole interior is a magnificent sounding-board, if that is the proper expression, and for fifty years, if the hall stands, it will constantly improve, and have a resonant quality unparalleled in any other auditorium. ”

“ And what is more, every person seated in the auditorium, either on floor or galleries, can see and hear the two Readers who conduct the services on the platform in front of the great organ.
This was the aim and object of the architect: to construct an auditorium that would seat five thousand people, each of whom could see the Readers, and with such nicely adjusted acoustic properties that each person could hear what was said. To do this it was necessary to set aside the traditions of interior church architecture. ”

“ As I see it, there is but one primary physical requisite for a real People's Theater: the stage and auditorium must be large enough to accommodate large masses of people. [5] The other requisites are corollaries of this. Plays performed before thousands of spectators must be adapted to the sight and hearing. ”

“ The interior of the building is simple—severely so; but there is no occasion for color and decoration, since the people sit in the dark. The auditorium has the shape of a keystone, with the stage at the narrow end. ”

“ No views or records of the interior of this theatre exist, therefore, in reconstructing the stage, or auditorium, from imagination, conjecture must take the place of facts. Whether galleries surrounded the stage, as we find in the public theatres, or whether the spectators were seated on a level in front of the stage, is a matter of dispute. ”

“ As the doors in the back flat open, there can be had a glimpse of footlights, and just beyond them, a neutral drop, in grayish black, to represent an auditorium. Between the back flat and the stage footlights, (as distinguished from the regular footlights) the miniature stage is set to represent the interior of a doctor’s waiting-room. Through the door at the right can be seen a desk and revolving chair, and a couple of plain chairs against the wall; and through the left door, a table, littered with magazines, a cabinet, a revolving bookcase and two more chairs. ”

“ The essential principle of the whole is stability. It is the Roman style with all its good qualities exaggerated. Elegance is re [214] placed by a heavy grandeur; purity by strength.
The auditorium as originally constructed—save for the graceful colonnade which surmounted its enclosing wall, and for the ornamentation which certainly was bestowed upon the rear wall of the stage and probably upon the facing-wall of the first tier of seats—was as severe as the façade: simply bare tiers of stone benches, divided into three distinct stages, rising steplike one above another in a great semi-circle. ”

“ The vestibule is a fitting entrance to this magnificent temple. In the ceiling is a sunburst with a seven-pointed star, which illuminates it. From this are the entrances leading to the auditorium, the "Mother's room," and the directors' room.
The auditorium is seated with pews of curly birch, upholstered in old rose plush. The floor is in white Italian mosaic, with frieze of the old rose, and the wainscoting repeats the same tints. The base and cap are of pink Tennessee marble. ”

“ In the theatre, this perpetuation of musty, tradition-hallowed faults of construction has been carried to an extraordinary extreme. There is more ritual, one might believe, in constructing a stage and auditorium in accordance with honored custom than there is in the building of a church. In the more modern theatres, there have been notable improvements over the theatres of a generation ago ”

“ Referring once more to the construction of the theatres, it is important to note that they differed most from modern playhouses in their size; not so much, perhaps, in the size of the stage as in the dimensions of the auditorium. The building was so made that the remotest spectator could hardly have been distant more than a dozen yards, or thereabouts, from the front of the stage. The whole auditory were thus within a hearing distance that conveyed the faintest modulation of the performer’s voice, and at the same time demanded no exaggerated effort in the more sonorous utterances. ”

“ The use to which the stage is put determines always the shape and style of the auditorium. There is no doubt that some great change is soon to overtake the theatre; the drama will assume a new form, demanding a new mode of presentation, and so a new theatre. Presently I shall discuss what forms this new theatre may assume, but for the moment it is enough to observe that it will be marked by a closer bond, one way or another, between the audience and the players, between the audience and the play. ”

“ Some of the Guardians individually approach the people who are sitting on the benches on stage; the marshals explain that a special event is scheduled, and would these people please try to find seats in the auditorium. No one objects; some people find new seats, others leave the theater. ”

“ An opera house is really two buildings, the auditorium and the stage. The stage with its tall scene-loft is frequently as large from the standpoint of cubic feet as the auditorium. Sometimes it is larger. To fill these two immense buildings the voice must be strong and continually concentrated, dans le Masque. The delicate little effects that the concert singer is obliged to produce would not be heard over the footlights. ”

“ In many places new school buildings are being constructed with an auditorium, which may be used as a gymnasium, library room, dining room, etc., so that they may serve as social centers for the community. ”

“ No expense or precaution was omitted to make the theater as fireproof as it could be made, there being nothing combustible in the construction of the house except the trimmings and furnishings of the stage and auditorium. In the building of the theater we sacrificed more space to aisles and exits than any theater in America. ”

“ The Elder in the Chair The auditorium of All People's was cunningly contrived to bring a very large number of people close to each other and to the minister. Roughly semicircular, with bowled main floor and rimmed around by a gallery that edged nearer and nearer at the sides, it was possible to seat fifteen hundred persons where a man in the pulpit could look each individual in the eye, and except where the screen of the gallery broke in, each auditor could see every other auditor. ”

“ The theater which is not yet completed is in the basement of the new brick consolidated school. It will be steam heated and later electric lighted, two dressing rooms back of the stage, and well I guess that’s enough for a while. The auditorium will be about 19 x 40 ft.
“Now I believe what we can do others can do as we are only an ordinary community, our director was a college graduate with a lot of pep and push, that’s all.
“Do you ever loan out any of your scenery? Another party who has ‘caught the fever,’ is going to try the same stunt with modifications. ”

“ A large auditorium is devoted to the study of history and geography, which are combined into one subject and inculcated with the assistance of lantern slides or moving pictures, visualization of scenes and events being made use of to attract interest and assist memorization. ”

“ Among these were that it should be useful to as many people in a community as possible; that it should contain an auditorium of ample size, thoroughly equipped for entertainments and especially for illustrated lectures; the offices should be adapted to the sort of work to be carried on and that the building should contain some place where the quiet essential to historical and literary work may be found. ”

“ The huge Auditorium fronting on Michigan Avenue was erected at a cost of $3,500,000, includes a hotel and theatre, and is surmounted with a tower rising two hundred and seventy feet, giving a fine view over the city and lake. ”

“ The men of the club meet in the auditorium and transact regular business while the Ladies’ Aid of the Club meet in the dining rooms. At the close of the business session all congregate in the auditorium where a program made up of songs, recitations, readings, essays, debates, dialogues, monologues, the club journal, four minute speeches, etc., is given. ”

“ If an observer stands some distance from the front of a cliff and claps his hands, or shouts, he finds that the sound is returned to him from the cliff as an echo. So, in an auditorium, an auditor near the speaker gets the sound first directly from the speaker, then, an instant later, a strong repetition of the sound by reflection from a distant wall. ”

“ It is of some small advantage to have the ventilation current go in the same direction that the sound is to go, since a wind tends to carry the sound with it.
IV. The Investigation in the Auditorium at the University of Illinois. A. PRELIMINARY WORK.
As already stated, a chaos of sound was set up when an observer in the Auditorium spoke or shouted or clapped his hands. Both echoes and reverberations were present and could be heard in all parts of the room, though the echoes seemed to be strongest on the stage and in the balcony. ”

“ Mary Church Terrell
Footnotes:
[347] The auditorium has a large stage, seating capacity for 1,500, with provisions made for presenting motion pictures. The pipe organ in the auditorium offers musical advantages which the pupils have never before enjoyed. The lunch room having a modern kitchen for the preparation of hot foods contributes greatly to the health and comfort of both teachers and pupils. The efficiency of the music department has been greatly enhanced by the five pianos which have been installed. ”